


a million little times

by kitthae



Category: ONEUS (Band), ONEWE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Everyone Needs A Hug, Friends With Benefits, Friends With Benefits To Lovers, Lying To Your Family and Friends, M/M, No Braincells Detected, Secret Relationship, University, idiot plot, the real reason giwook & dongju are awkward around each other ...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 50,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27921181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitthae/pseuds/kitthae
Summary: So he lets Dongju in through his bedroom window once or twice a week. And in front of Dongmyeong, they act like nothing is happening. Two opposite ends of his world, like they have always been.It's weird to be keeping things from Dongmyeong. Maybe especially because Dongmyeong is an open book when it comes to his relationships, or lack of those — sometimes overly so. Giwook doesn’t want or need to know every last detail of Dongmyeong’s sex life, but at least he’s never out of the loop with him.He’s leaving Dongmyeong majorly out of the loop of not only his own, but also Dongmyeong’s own brother’s life, and it's weird. They used to tell each other everything. But so did Dongmyeong and Dongju, he supposes.
Relationships: Lee Giwook | Cya/Son Dongju | Xion
Comments: 25
Kudos: 66





	a million little times

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, hello!
>
>>   
> ME, 11/01/2020:  
> this morning while i was half dreaming half delirious i had the FUNNIEST thought  
> "what if dongju and giwook are awkward around each other in front of dongmyeong bc theyve been fucking behind his back"
>> 
>> Laura, 11/01/2020:  
> POFGGJFHHHKK LMAOOOOOO
>> 
>> ME, 11/01/2020:  
> I LITERALLY WOKE MYSELF UO BC STARTED LAUGHING  
> PLEASEEE  
> the mental image of dongmyeong if he found out  
> peak comedy
>> 
>> Laura, 11/01/2020:  
> POOR DONGMYEONG
>> 
>> ME, 11/01/2020:  
> MHJDJDJSKS PLEASEEEE  
> hes like i wish you two would get along :( whole time theyve been getting it behind his back
> 
> If you clicked on this I am already immensely grateful, I know it's not a usual pairing and for this to be the the first ONEUS/ONEWE fic I post ... oh man. But here we are! Thank you for your interest and time. I actually wrote this for NaNoWriMo and as you can see by the wordcount, I did win! :) I've spent the last week editing this baby and polishing it up, so a few of the originally written words (mostly filler words) have been crossed out to make for a more pleasant reading experience, and I hope she is now up to standards that the people are willing to accept. I think the pairing this is written for and the entire set up go to show that this is very much one of the most self indulgent things I've ever written, I do not expect this fic to do well, this for ME only. I am still sharing it with you though :^)
> 
> If you are still interested, here you go! I hope you enjoy :D
> 
> The title is from Taylor Swift's 'illicit affairs', and you should check out the song to really grasp the feeling of this fic :)

It first happens at some kind of party, Giwook barely remembers how he got there. But Dongmyeong is there, too, and he’s hanging off the arm of some guy he probably only met half an hour ago, so it must be a delightful party.

Places Dongmyeong can find good-looking men to latch onto are usually good places, although not rare.

There is a lot of alcohol involved, because they are all barely legal adults and have to prove themselves in some kind of pissing contest with each other, in which everyone only gets progressively more drunk and no one ever wins. Giwook downs the shot Dongmyeong hands him, anyway.

But if there is one thing he does not wish to be doing, even piss drunk at a party, it’s sitting next to Dongmyeong and his catch of the night as they shove their tongues down each other's throats.

More than just mildly disgusted, Giwook grabs his drink and leaves the table. It’s a nice house, even with people milling about the hallways and the living room, and making a mess out of the kitchen. He can’t remember whose house this even is, much less if he knows the host, but he finds his way to a bathroom, somehow.

The door is unlocked, and Giwook has half the mind to think himself lucky to find an empty bathroom this quickly, when he opens the door and finds the room behind it to be very much not empty.

“Oh,” Dongju breathes out, stepping away from the sink. “I forgot to lock the door. Sorry, do you need to —”

“I mean, yeah.” Heat rushes into Giwook’s cheeks, and there really is nothing that embarrassing about walking into a bathroom to take a piss, but there is just something here — maybe it’s the alcohol.

Or maybe it’s the way Dongju’s eyes flicker between him and the wall, or that they came here in the same car, on opposite sides of Dongmyeong, as they have always been. Held together by the unstoppable force that is Dongmyeong, but nothing more. Nothing beyond that. Dongju here in the pale light of this bathroom, a pouch clutched in his hand and a smudge of black under his eye is maybe the rawest Giwook has ever seen him.

It’s definitely the tequila shots, though.

“Right.” Dongju presses his pouch to his chest and makes for squeezing past Giwook, out the door. “Um, I don’t think I’m quite done here, so, don’t be too long? I’ll wait outside.”

Giwook nods — what else is he supposed to do, really? — and steps aside to let Dongju pass. He does his business here, letting his entire body tip forward once he’s done to rest his forehead on the cool tiled wall for a second. Tequila always gives him such a nasty headache, but Dongmyeong insists on drinking it every time.

And he still hasn’t stopped thinking about Dongju, the reflection of his cheek in the mirror. Smudged makeup.

His head hurts, and he’s painfully aware of how drunk he is — when else has he ever spared Dongju more than a thought? — but he buttons his pants back up and pulls himself off the wall to open the door and let Dongju back in.

He’s leaned against the wall opposite the door, and he looks up from his phone at the sound of the door opening. The smile he gives him is only a little awkward, the exact kind of smile you’d direct at anyone you encounter in a party bathroom, just the place where you hope to not meet anyone. He pockets his phone and makes for the door.

And Giwook can’t not say anything — if only out of simple duty to Dongmyeong — “Are you okay?”

Dongju’s eyes are open and honest, they always are. Giwook has seen him drunk enough times to know that he is right now, too, the rosy blush on the tops of his cheeks a telltale sign — Dongmyeong gets the same.

But his eyes hold something other than the witty mirth that his brother’s do — Giwook has seen it in him, too, he’s seen the way the two of them interact way too many times, but it’s not a default setting like it is for Dongmyeong. For Dongju, he is always just looking. Observing, almost, way too attentive. He’s quiet, almost shy around people he doesn’t know and awkward around Giwook, but his eyes are always open and every word that drops from his lips is soaked in dry truth rather than cheeky sarcasm. That’s Dongmyeong’s thing; Dongju’s is — this.

A raised eyebrow, and a quirk of his lips. “Of course I am. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Giwook nearly chokes around the words. “I just haven’t seen you around much tonight, and then I find you holed up in a bathroom all by yourself — I just thought I’d ask —”

Giwook has to cut himself off before he honestly chokes as Dongju’s eyebrow raises further.

“I’ve been around.” The dust on Dongju’s cheeks turns rosier. “Were you looking for me, or what?”

Giwook can’t say that he was, actively. He really only ended up here because he had too much tequila and enough of Dongmyeong exchanging saliva with a random man in public, and all the alcohol went straight into his bladder. But he did ask Dongmyeong where Dongju was earlier, which was graced with a frown and a shrug.

So he can’t say that he wasn’t, either, because he did find him, too, and they’re still talking in this awkward space between the door and the hallway, and really, there isn’t anything he can say to that —

And Dongju doesn’t say anything either, not for a moment. He’s still holding onto that pouch of his. “Where’s Dongmyeong?” he asks, eventually. “Were you with him?”

“Yeah, he’s sucking face with some guy in the kitchen. At least he was the last time I saw him.”

“Good.” Dongju’s hand rests on the knob of the door. Giwook can’t say if he just moved it, or if it’s been there the entire time. He’s long lost track of what Dongju’s doing. He tries to trace him with his eyes, but there is just too much to be kept in a single line of his eyes. He’s bursting at the seams with, just, about everything.

“Good?” Giwook raises an eyebrow.

“Good,” Dongju confirms. He takes a step into the bathroom. Giwook doesn’t look away from his face.

It brings him just that much closer to Giwook, too, and Giwook has never had anything to say or think about Dongju, really — he was always just there. Dongmyeong’s twin, Dongmyeong’s other best friend.

But now he’s here completely differently, way closer than he should be, and his face is pink from the drinks he’s had, but his eyes are clear and he’s looking at Giwook. His eyebrows pull together like he’s concentrating on a single detail of his face, maybe a spot on his forehead. His gaze alone makes Giwook flush red with heat.

And then Dongju moves, brushes past him, through the door and his hand doesn’t stay where it’s supposed to be — it runs along the length of Giwook’s arm, almost as if to gently push him aside, but it lingers a moment too long.

The heat that sparks in the nerves that lie there goes straight into Giwook’s head. His breath hitches, and he stumbles in the wrong direction. The door falls shut and Dongju locks it and Giwook is inside the room —

They have both had too much to drink, definitely — there is no other explanation for it, or at least Giwook refuses for there to be. He barely even remembers how it happens, barely remembers following the line of Dongju’s steps into the bathroom, faces never turning away from each other, so it must have been due to the alcohol. Just as is the warmth of Dongju’s arms around his shoulders, now, and Giwook is a little dizzy from how fast he’s spun around, back pressed against the sink. Dongju is kissing him — _Dongju_ is _kissing_ him — and Giwook kisses him right back.

It tastes like nothing but cheap vodka, maybe an undertone of the brownies that the host of this party handed out earlier, but it feels good. Like fire spreading in his veins, like pure sugar on his tongue, even if it isn’t sweet. The opposite of sweet, in fact, it burns on his tongue like bitter acid, and he's addicted to it. Already. He can't seem to even think of moving away.

Giwook pours his own taste of tequila right back into Dongju’s mouth, and he winds his hands around his hips. Holds him there. Like he doesn't want him to leave, even if he can't think of what else he wants, then.

But there is no room for thinking, in general, so Giwook doesn’t. What Dongmyeong would think of this, why Dongju would even want to kiss him, why nothing ever happened earlier between them if these feelings have just been sleeping in them, if this is a one-time thing. Was Dongju hiding in the bathroom because he was upset about something and this is his way out of it? Has Giwook every actively thought of Dongju as even remotely attractive?

Giwook doesn’t think about it. His lips drop down to Dongju’s neck like it’s the natural way of things. They find the edge of his sweater, and just the place he must have spritzed his cologne on before they left.

The world aligns itself with every time his lips hit Dongju’s skin, like it makes sense to brush his hands under the leather of his jacket and take it off. It’s out of mind as soon as it hits the floor, and Dongju’s hands come up again to cradle his face between his fingers, strong and digging into his skin, pressing their mouths together again.

Fire burns deep inside of Giwook, setting off the alarms in his head, but he ignores them in favor of the sweet release Dongju’s lips bring. Like all he’s ever meant to do is kiss them.

Air fills his lungs as when Dongju pulls away. His eyes are big and wide and more lost than Giwook has ever seen them. “What are we doing?” he asks, breathless, but his hands don’t leave Giwook’s face. They dig in deeper.

“I don’t know,” Giwook replies, because he doesn’t. Because he can't think. His hands, too, stay wrapped around Dongju’s shoulders.

And his eyes are right there, open and honest and so unmistakably, so inevitably him, Giwook has to stare at them. The look in them, the way he’s searching Giwook’s face as if looking for hesitation, a heat behind them that Giwook never would have expected to see in Dongju, quiet, playful Dongju. Not directed towards him, at least.

But Dongju is inevitable, Giwook thinks, and maybe he always has been. From the very day he and Dongmyeong walked into his life, two boys with the same eyes and the same scraped knees. Eyes that turned out to be so different, upon closer look, and one of them pulled back the moment Giwook joined them in their game on the street. The one that is here now, sliding his arms around Giwook’s shoulders, lips meeting. Always drawn towards each other as they orbited aorund Dongmyeong. Two forces meant to clash one day. Inevitable.

Dongju has the same eyes as Dongmyeong, the same slope of his lids, the little folds around them, wrinkling when he smiles. They don't look alike, but they are the same, and Giwook thinks he should find that to be a major turn off. Dongmyeong is his best friend, someone he knows way too well to ever find him attractive. So why does he not care if it's Dongju, why does this let him run so hot?

His fingers dig into Giwook’s face so hard it almost hurts, and Giwook doesn’t have it in him to tell him to back off. Finds he doesn’t want him to. Dongju asks, “Kiss me again?” and Giwook does.

Because at the end of the day, Dongju is not Dongmyeong, and Giwook almost thinks he’s seen this coming.

Giwook is ten when the Sons move in next door.

There are few kids his age on their street and he knows his mother is often way too tired to drive him all the way downtown to the houses of his friends from school. She’s been working night shifts again, and she needs to sleep during the day when his father is at work. So Giwook patiently sits at home after school and plays the video games they buy him for Christmas to make up for the little time they have for him these days — until the Sons show up.

He hears his parents talk about it weeks before the big moving truck pulls into their street. The apartment next to theirs has finally found a new owner, after the elderly couple that lived there before moved into a retirement home.

Giwook sits by the window in their kitchen and watches the big truck — and the small car coming to a halt behind it. Out of it pours a family of four; young parents that grab boxes out of the trunk as soon as they get out, and two boys. One of them has a big toy stuffed under his arm, but Giwook can’t tell their ages.

Which turns out to be fair, because upon a visit from their new neighbors it’s soon revealed that they don’t bring only one boy Giwook’s age, but two — twins, although the taller one stays a step behind the other.

“I’m Dongmyeong,” one of them tells him when their parents have moved on into the living room and Giwook is standing half awkwardly in the hallway with the two boys. Dongmyeong smiles brighter than any of the kids in Giwook’s class, and he moves to take his shoes off without even asking Giwook where to put them.

His brother, taller than him and a little more wide eyed, introduces himself as Dongju, but he’s a lot quieter. He stays quiet, too, at least around Giwook, and Dongmyeong helpfully informs him that, “He’s shy.”

Even days later, when Giwook spots the twins playing in their building's backyard from his bedroom window and shrugs on his jacket to join them, Dongju draws back immediately upon his arrival. He doesn’t leave, but he laughs less than Giwook saw him do from the window, and he fiddles with his fingers, only talks to Dongmyeong.

Giwook decides not to take it personally. Some people just are like that.

Instead, he only continues to grow closer to Dongmyeong. Years pass as they come, and the Sons don’t move away again. Dongmyeong and Dongju become a constant in Giwook’s life — especially Dongmyeong. They all walk to and from the bus station together every day, they take similar classes and sit together at lunch, but it’s only Dongmyeong who ever wants to hang out with Giwook after school.

When asked about his brother, he just shrugs. “He is like that. He’s awkward.”

Dongju doesn’t seem to ever want to leave Dongmyeong’s side, doesn’t make many friends in school apart from him — except for some older boys that Dongmyeong heavily scowls at — and he seems to accept that Giwook comes with hanging out with Dongmyeong. They just never grow out of that awkward phase.

Giwook is sure that if it came down to it, he would consider Dongju a friend. He would help him if he ever needed to, and he at least hopes that Dongju would do the same for him.

They just never hang out on their own the way Giwook does with Dongmyeong, they never grow close in that way — although as the years pass and Dongmyeong progressively turns into the biggest menace Giwook has ever had the displeasure of knowing, he’s not sure if he isn’t glad that he doesn’t know Dongju quite _that_ well.

He’s not sure if he could deal with two of them.

“Shit,” someone curses next to him, and Giwook only slowly opens his eyes. A heavy weight presses down on his lids, tries to keep him under the gentle waves of sleep that must have crashed over his head sometime in the past few hours, and it’s hard to shake off the grip they have on him. “Shit. Shit! _Shit!”_

Until a loud crash somewhere next to the bed makes him flinch out of whatever trance he was trapped in.

He shoots up straight, blanket falling to his hips and leaving his torso exposed to the cold air. Morning light is falling in through the window to his right and he has no idea what time it is — too late again, probably.

“Are you okay?” he asks, tentatively crawling over to the heap on his floor that must have Dongju hidden in it somewhere. The arm of a sweater is stuck out towards him as Dongju attempts to get into it.

“Yeah.” His head resurfaces from somewhere in the middle of the puddle of clothes and blankets they dropped to the floor last night, and he shakes his hair out of his eyes. Even this early in the morning, there is a healthy flush to his cheeks, and he’s rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with one hand. “I just forgot that I promised my mom I’d help her set up the birthday lunch we’re doing for grandma and I don’t want her to come looking for me.”

“Oh shit, you better get going, then.” A glance on his phone tells Giwook it’s well into the day.

“Yeah, well, guess what I’m doing.” Dongju buttons up his pants and crawls back over the bed to press a quick kiss to Giwook’s lips — or what was probably supposed to be a quick kiss. Because once their lips meet, Dongju melts against him, boneless. A small peck turns into a series of longer kisses, pressed close.

And while in any other circumstances Giwook would do anything but complain about getting more kisses than anticipated, he does have to interrupt Dongju by pushing him up by his shoulders, chuckling.

“Weren’t you about to leave?”

“Mhm, are you trying to get rid of me?” Dongju mumbles, flopping right back against him. He has enough decency to be gentle with realigning their lips, instead of just crashing back on it and potentially knocking Giwook’s teeth out. Against his lips, in the middle of his kisses, Dongju whispers, “Give me two more minutes.”

And Giwook indulges him, because he always does. Lets Dongju kiss him until their lips tingle and Dongju is _really_ running late for his lunch. Runs a hand down Dongju’s back until he relaxes against him even more.

“You may want to shower before you get in front of your family,” Giwook advises when they finally separate.

Dongju pinches his thigh as he crawls back off the bed and straightens out his clothes. “Can’t. No time.”

“Well, I’m just saying that you reek of sex, and —”

“Some deodorant will have to do for the time being,” Dongju cuts him off. “I’m sure my parents are, like, immune to the smell by now, anyway. You don’t want to know the way Dongmyeong walks around the house.”

“Yeah, but I thought Dongmyeong isn’t supposed to know that you —”

“Will you give it a rest.” Dongju rolls his eyes, but Giwook sees him turn away to hide his smile. He watches as Dongju tugs on his shoes, strategically positioned next to the window, and pulls the sleeves of his sweater over his hands before he pushes the window open. “See you?” It sounds like a question, because it is.

“Yeah, I’m coming over for Dongmyeong after your family lunch.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t see you then,” Dongju reminds him. It’s just a little weird to think about. “I’ll text you, though.”

Giwook nods and watches in silence as Dongju swings his leg out of the window and disappears, a metallic clang where his feet meet the landing, and Giwook waits until he hears the telltale sound of his window opening. Only when he’s sure that Dongju has made it back into his own room without any major injuries does he get up to get dressed himself. His muscles ache faintly where he’s sure Dongju’s hands dug into them last night, and he counts his hickeys.

Three, four, this time. A relatively low number considering what they usually do to each other.

Giwook slides under the shower, lets the water and soap wash away all traces of the night before. Even the simple jumper he pulls over his head afterwards covers all the marks Dongju left on his skin.

It’s been a few weeks since what they both ceremoniously dubbed the bathroom incident, which ended in not just kisses but Dongju’s dick down Giwook’s throat and caused what could almost be called a chain reaction of hookups following that night. And they don’t really go around telling people what they’ve been up to.

Not to say that they haven’t told anyone, at all, and are making quite the show out of keeping it a secret.

It’s nothing more than vaguely horny texts on Giwook’s phone from a number he previously only exchanged necessities with — _Is Dongmyeong home he’s not picking up his phone_ and _Yeah, I think he’s asleep_ and _Do you know which chapter we were supposed to read for Mrs Kim?_ when they were still in school — and climbing through bedroom windows. They kiss only because that’s what they started with, and it would be weird to set a no kissing boundary after all that.

Giwook is in no way opposed to kissing Dongju, he’s just heard of too many friends with benefits arrangements that failed just because of that. Lucky for them, he and Dongju are not even really friends.

So he lets Dongju in through his bedroom window once or twice a week and they kiss each other silly and fuck until they see stars — because that’s what people their age do, and Giwook is not about to miss out on that just because the person he’s doing it with is his best friend’s twin brother. And in front of Dongmyeong, they act like nothing is happening. Two opposite ends of his world, like they have always been.

It feels weird to be keeping things from Dongmyeong. Maybe especially because Dongmyeong is an open book when it comes to his relationships, or lack of those — sometimes overly so. Giwook doesn’t want or need to know every last detail of Dongmyeong’s sex life, but at least he’s never out of the loop with him.

He’s leaving Dongmyeong majorly out of the loop of not only his own, but also Dongmyeong’s own brother’s life, and it feels weird. They used to tell each other everything. But so did Dongmyeong and Dongju, he supposes.

No rule without an exception, he thinks as he sits down with his work for the day — it’s the bit of work he’s doing to calm his parents’ nerves before he finally heads off to university, at least pretend to be supporting the family. While on the side, he has his program open with the track he wants to show Dongmyeong when he heads over later.

When he steps into the Son house once more and concentrates on not looking over at Dongju’s bedroom door.

He sighs at the pure thought, hacking his fingers into the keys.

Youngjo chews on the straw of his iced coffee, fingers tapping against the cup. “Hmm. I don’t know.”

Giwook leans back far in his chair, if only to get himself out of range in case the sudden urge to strike Youngjo across the face should arise again. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Youngjo sighs and puts his cup down on the bar. The dark paint is coming off in chips and it wobbles under the impact. “Look, Giwook, I know you’re trying to make it big with these beats some day, and you do have potential, no question. I’m just saying we can’t really play them unless you give us something to actually work with —”

“I think this is plenty to work with,” Dongmyeong cuts into his word. He and Dongju are perched on two high stools somewhere behind Giwook — Giwook needs his emotional support here, and Dongmyeong agreed to come only on the conditions that he could bring Dongju and that they would get dinner together after. “We all know you’re just trying to get Giwook to enter your department, so why not just tell him that you think he’s great, and you’d be honored to have him, instead of lying and saying his music sucks, when it clearly doesn’t.”

Youngjo blinks at a point behind Giwook’s head, likely Dongmyeong’s face, but Giwook doesn’t dare to turn around and check. “And who do you think you are?”

Giwook turns around, just in time to see Dongmyeong shrug. “I’m his best friend, and the voice on his tracks.”

Youngjo raises his eyebrows. “So this is some kind of targeted attack to question me about my intentions of getting you into our department? What is he, your bad cop?”

“No, this is actually just me asking if you think my tracks are up to your standards.” Giwook sets his eyes hard on Youngjo’s face, even if he knows that could earn him a slap if Youngjo were anyone else. “And then you insisting that they aren’t and advising me to attend your school in order to improve. If that’s really what this is all about, then you don’t have to worry — I already applied. You got me. Now play my goddamn tracks.”

He slides the flash drive over the bar with finality, and Youngjo picks it up gingerly. He regards Giwook’s face with something akin to wonder for a moment, before he nods slowly. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.” Giwook pushes away from the bar and picks up his bag. “Don’t forget to drop my SoundCloud.” He leaves the shitty university bar without even looking back for Youngjo’s reaction.

Dongmyeong catches up to him a few stores down the street. “Holy shit,” he says, linking his arm under Giwook’s. In the reflection of a storefront, Giwook can see Dongju walking behind them. “You applied to USW?”

Giwook shrugs. “I mean, I have to go somewhere, eventually. He’s not wrong. If I really want to make the best music I can, I need to learn as much as I can and USW is not a terrible place to start. Not a terrible place at all, actually, if they produce geniuses like him. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s far better than me.”

“Because he’s learned a lot more than you,” Dongmyeong replies.

“Yes, which is why I have to get onto that.” Giwook kicks a pebble across the sidewalk. “Sorry for not telling you.”

It’s Dongmyeong’s turn to shrug and kick the pebble. “I mean, it’s fine, you don’t have to apologize for that.” He laughs a little. “I’m not your mom. And Dongju is going to USW, too, after all.”

Giwook catches Dongju lowering his head in the reflection, and they don’t say anything else about this.

“Dinner?” Dongmyeong suggests cheerily when they stop in front of their favorite barbecue place. He pulls them both inside without waiting for a reply.

“So,” Dongju starts, right as he drops down sharply. “USW, huh?”

It pushes a small whine out of Giwook’s throat, one that he can’t hold back with the way his breath hitches. Somewhere in between, he manages to nod. “Yeah, I guess. I applied a few weeks ago.”

“Hmm.” Dongju rocks down on his cock, making Giwook arch so far off the bed at the sudden friction he’s afraid he might break his back. “Dongmyeong’s still a bit upset that you did without telling him, just so you know.”

“Can we — not talk about Dongmyeong right now?” Giwook asks, breathless. He has to squeeze his eyes shut, dig his fingers deep into the muscles of Dongju’s thighs that bracket his hips — flexing with every movement Dongju makes on top of him. The pressure is insane, it drives Giwook out of his mind a little, and Dongju is right here, warm and on top of him, head cocked to the sight and a flush to his cheeks — a sight to see. It hurts to look at.

But he doesn’t seem like he’s particularly in the moment, because even as his thighs flex harder under Giwook’s hands and his movements become sloppier, more intense, but sloppier all the same, and little noises bubble past his lips — he still finds it in him somewhere to say, “We could go to USW together.”

Giwook opens one of his eyes only to raise an eyebrow at him. “I fear we would be doing that, anyway.”

“No, I mean —” Dongju drops down so hard Giwook has to gurgle a loud moan at the back of his throat and fit his hand over Dongju’s mouth somehow, for fear of his parents hearing them. To prevent more noises from himself, he latches his mouth onto Dongju’s chest, presses kisses there, and his teeth. “I mean, we could live together. Maybe?”

Giwook chuckles against his skin. “Yeah, sure.”

He sucks a red mark into the skin of Dongju’s chest, and a tiny moan spills out of Dongju’s mouth despite the fingers Giwook has pressed to his lips — he rocks his hips down harder and Giwook cants his own up to meet him halfway. It’s getting more desperate. Panting fills the room along with the sound of skin meeting skin. Giwook can’t hold back his own sounds, fingers digging into Dongju’s thigh hard enough to bruise, only to ground himself.

He comes first, unsurprisingly — he usually does when he tops, but he has the decency to wrap a hand around Dongju’s cock and help him finish. Dongju bows his head down over him with a low grunt, strung tight like a bow until he’s done and he flops down against Giwook’s chest. Warm and soft, soft skin.

Only when they’re lying like that, Dongju’s sweaty forehead resting against his shoulder and that odd post sex scent filling his nose, does Dongju bring it up again. “We could,” he mumbles. “Live together, I mean.”

“Yeah, because that wouldn’t be suspicious at all.” If he had bones left, Giwook would run a hand through his hair.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Dongju’s lips move against his skin as he talks, his breath fans over his neck. “I don’t think Dongmyeong’s gonna go to USW, and you guys would stay in contact no matter what if I lived with you. It would be cheaper, too. And even from their point of view, it’s not like we’re strangers. We get along well enough, don’t we?”

With the way he smirks at him — Giwook does find the strength to raise his hand and pinch him in the ass cheek.

But he relents eventually, “I guess so. I don’t know yet, I haven’t even been accepted. I’ll think about who to live with when they accept me, all right?”

Dongju hums against his skin and finally climbs off of him so they can get rid of the condom and get cleaned up. Before he gets up, though, Dongju presses a sweet kiss to his lips.

It feels like a punch to the guts, and Giwook doesn’t even know why.

It’s only two days later that Giwook sits in Dongmyeong’s room with his feet tucked under his thighs and the tip of a pencil resting against his lips and he asks, “Would you wanna live with me if I get into USW?”

Dongmyeong looks up from the sheet he’s going over. His eyebrows raise. “I haven’t even applied anywhere?”

“Well, and I haven’t been accepted. This is hypothetical as of right now, Dongmyeong.” Giwook leans back on the bed until his back meets the wall. His laptop runs hot on his thighs and he’d set it to the side if he wasn’t so deep in thought. “And even if you don’t go to uni, you wanna get out of here eventually, right? Now’s as good a time as ever.”

Dongmyeong shrugs and turns back to his sheet music. “I mean, I guess. You have anywhere in mind?”

“I don’t think I could stand to live in a dorm with all those people around me and, like, curfews and stuff. And it’s supposed to be kind of expensive at USW, too, I can probably find a place that’s cheaper even with the commute.”

“So you just need someone to split the rent with,” Dongmyeong summarizes for him.

“I mean, yeah,” Giwook has to admit, even if he’s a little embarrassed to admit it. At least it’s not the real reason, not fully. “But I could also use the company. What am I supposed to do without my voice?”

Dongmyeong’s fist meets his shoulder, but Giwook looks over to find him grinning. “Wow, you really sound like you enjoy being my friend,” Dongmyeong comments, nose high in the air. “But you know what, that doesn’t sound too bad. Dongju and I meant to look at universities for me to possibly apply to, so, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Giwook nods and goes back to his keys — until he remembers one last thing. “Do me a favor?”

“Another one?” He can hear the laugh in Dongmyeong’s voice.

“Um, don’t tell anyone about this yet? The possibly living together, I mean.” Giwook scratches the back of his neck, where the guilt lodges deep into his skin. “I haven’t told my parents about my plans yet.”

Dongmyeong raises an eyebrow again, but he shrugs eventually. “Sure.”

Giwook has indeed not told his parents — because really, he only came up with these plans about half an hour ago, staring at the poster wall of Dongmyeong’s room that’s been there for as long as he can remember — but there is another pair of ears he does not want to hear about this just yet. His eyes dive below the posters.

There is only one time they ever fuck in Dongju’s room, for two reasons:

One, despite having lived in this apartment block a lot longer than the Sons, Giwook hasn’t actually mastered the window climbing strategy. His heart beats high in his throat when he pushes his own window open and lowers himself onto the landing of the fire escape — he’s watched Dongju just drop down from his window ledge like a deadweight, and he can’t imagine it for the life of him. He doesn’t trust the rusty metal of the stairs.

It gets only worse when he has to push himself up on the handrail and climb up on the air-con unit that sits right between the two fire escape stairs — he’s all too well aware that he’s putting his life in the hands of some screws.

But getting onto the fire escape connecting to the Sons’ apartment is still the simple part, no matter how nerve wrecking. Because as opposed to his own room, Dongju’s is not conveniently placed right above the landing. If he climbed up right here, he would end up in Dongmyeong’s room, which is the opposite of the plan.

Granted, Dongju promised that Dongmyeong would be out until at least midnight — else he probably wouldn’t have even invited him over — and it would probably be easier to just travel through his room. But it’s a risk.

Besides, Dongju’s window is already open and waiting for him.

He pushes himself up on the rail of this landing, too, presses his side hard against the rough wall of the building to keep his balance as he leans forward, knees half bent, and reaches for the ledge of Dongju’s window. Wraps one hand around the window frame, then the other, breathes out deeply and pushes his feet off the rail.

For a heart stopping moment, he dangles in the air three stories up by his hands.

But his feet find the wall, pushing against it and relieving the strain of holding his entire body off his arms enough to be able to hook his elbow onto the ledge and hoist himself up. The texture of the wall at least provides enough ground for his shoes to foot on, and by his toes he manages to push his body up further.

His upper body falls into Dongju’s room and he lets out a grunt, taking a moment to pull his legs after him.

Dongju is standing above him, in the middle of the room and from the looks of it, halfway to the window to help him. Staring down at Giwook now, though, he only grins. “You made it!”

Two, right as Giwook has eased his cock down Dongju’s throat, finally, and Dongju is staring up at him through a singular tear stuck at the corner of his lashes and past the cherry red tip of his nose, his parents call from down the hall that they would be leaving, and to please not forget to have dinner because they wouldn’t be back in time.

The response Dongju calls back is way too hoarse, and he has to call back once more to assure them he’s fine.

Now, the Sons leaving is not a problem — quite the opposite actually, because it means they don’t have to cover each other's mouths to stop moans from spilling out, and Giwook has always enjoyed the sounds Dongju makes.

The problem is that he got so comfortable with the prospect of getting to leave through the front door instead of the window that he even talks to Dongju about it when he pushes into him.

And he does leave through the front door, eventually. He shrugs his sweater back on, pulls up his pants and kisses Dongju goodbye before he has the chance to fall asleep where he’s already curled up around his pillow, and he makes it exactly five steps down the hall after closing Dongju’s door before Dongmyeong rounds the corner.

Giwook freezes in his movement, but Dongmyeong’s entire face lights up at the sight of him.

“Oh, hi!” He crosses the distance between them and pulls Giwook into a hug. Giwook can only pray to anything above him that he doesn’t smell too much like he just fucked. “I didn’t know you were here. Did Dongju let you in?”

“Uh, yeah, he did,” Giwook tries to regain his composure. “Said you’d be back soon so I could just wait here.”

If Dongmyeong suspects anything is out of the ordinary with that, he doesn’t voice it. He pulls Giwook towards his room the way he always does. “Well, lucky for you, he was right. I was planning on coming back later, but it was just so boring there that I just decided to go home. So you’re lucky I’m back now!”

Giwook strains to smile back at him, even if his legs still feel like jelly as he follows him — for multiple reasons.

And he’s almost sure that, while he sits on Dongmyeong’s bed with his legs folded under him to hide the way his thighs are still shaking slightly and tries to listen to his relay of his night through the post coital fog hugging his brain, he hears Dongju laugh on the other side of the wall. He wishes he could glare at him through the drywall.

So Giwook is not exactly keen on repeating any of the night’s experiences, and although Dongju grins at him like a devil, he agrees that they got way too close to getting caught.

Winter comes and goes as it does every year. The cold months pass as Giwook has someone else to keep his bed warm with at least occasionally, and with the new year comes the twins’ twentieth birthday.

Dongmyeong is floating in some tequila induced trance on the armchair in the living room, and the last time Giwook saw him he was giving out life advice to everyone in his general vicinity, so Giwook gave him a well-meaning pat on the knee and got up to look for someone else to talk to.

Which he finds in Dongju — because where else? He’s standing in the kitchen with a drink in his hand and talking to someone Giwook remembers from school. They high five when Giwook enters the room, and that’s about all interaction Giwook receives from either of them because they immediately resume their conversation as if he’s not even there. Dongju doesn’t spare him another glance, even as he leans against the counter next to him.

Right. Because this is what they do in front of other people. No one is to know what they do when they climb through each other's windows at night — not that they ever talked about it, it’s just been assumed from the start.

In front of others, they are just the awkward two parts of Dongmyeong’s life that never quite got along as well.

Even if this guy doesn’t know them, doesn’t know that they normally aren’t supposed to be close, Giwook supposes a simple carelessness like this is more likely to give them away than anything.

“What do you need?” Dongju asks. Giwook didn’t even notice the guy left. How long has he been standing here?

“Oh, nothing.” Giwook clears his throat as if to shoo away the heat rushing into his cheeks. “I was just trying to escape from your brother. He’s had too much tequila again, and I wasn’t sure how long he was going to make it without either berating me for my life choices or roping me into kissing him.”

“Neither good options?” Dongju’s eyes are sharp and open.

A smile tugs at Giwook’s lips. “You should have more to drink,” he suggests. “It’s your birthday! And I’m not entirely sure that Dongmyeong isn’t planning something for tonight that no one wants to be sober for.”

The smile broadens when he hears Dongju chuckling into his cup. They’re both leaned against the counter and looking at the wall in front of them instead of each other, but even in this weirdly distanced setting they have to keep up in case Dongmyeong’s tequila craze drives him around the corner any second, warmth settles in Giwook’s belly.

Dongju makes him laugh — different from the way Dongmyeong makes him laugh, but he still does.

“Well” — Giwook watches as he pours a good few gulps of cheap vodka into his cup and mixes it up with a can of energy drink he picks out of the fridge — “You might be right about that.”

And Giwook is, because he maybe knows Dongmyeong better than even Dongju does sometimes, and they end up sitting in a circle on the living room floor with most of the rest of the guests only about an hour or two later. Giwook cradles the plastic cup with the drink Dongju made him in his lap and watches Dongmyeong closely.

There are more people here than Giwook assumed from the crowd that’s been loosely peppered around the front part of the apartment for most of the first half of the night, and Giwook recognizes far too many faces from high school. Most of them must already be in university by now, as he and the twins were some of the only people from their grade to stay at home after graduation, and he thinks it’s impressive how many Dongmyeong talked into coming.

Because this is absolutely not Dongju’s doing. He sits on Dongmyeong’s other side and fiddles with his hands.

They play a cheesy round of truth or dare, because one of the girls puts a hand over her heart with a big grin and swears up and down she hasn’t played since junior year, and they _have_ to, for the sake of memories.

Dongmyeong gives in to her request way too easily, especially because Giwook knows he thinks truth or dare is rather boring, and he raises a finger to his lips when Giwook raises an eyebrow at him.

So they play, and it’s boring, because most of the people just use the questions to catch up on what’s happened in everyone’s life in the rough year since they separated after graduation. The only somewhat interesting parts are when Dongju makes Dongmyeong kiss the girl who suggested the game, and when someone forces one of the guys to stuff an entire spoon of cinnamon into his mouth and he nearly pukes on the living room carpet.

“Have you been thinking about applying to universities for the upcoming semester?” another one of the girls asks Dongmyeong when the game has mostly dissolved into several conversations blooming around the room.

Dongmyeong seems all too happy to have a conversation of his own, immediately blubbering about how he’s been thinking about going into nursing and how he hasn’t applied anywhere yet, but, “Dongju’s gotten into USW for film and theatre and he’s _so_ excited for the semester to start. Isn’t that where you go, too?”

He must have had some of the gin that was passed around earlier, because while tequila tends to make him profound and horny, it’s usually only gin that makes him quite this loose-lipped. Giwook has learned the signs.

“Oh, and Giwookie here has also applied for USW.” Dongmyeong reaches over to pat his thigh. “He’s yet to be accepted, but they would be dumb to turn him down.”

“What are you applying for?” the girl asks him directly — Giwook feels bad for not even remembering her name.

“Oh, music. Composition. I’ve been making some tracks and Youngjo promised me he’d play them on his campus radio sometime, so I hope that’s happening. Gotta go for all the exposure I can get.”

The girl nods, and she doesn’t even seem openly disinterested. Giwook wishes he knew her name, just so he could look up her socials later tonight and find out if they had anything besides Dongmyeong connecting them, but it would be too awkward to ask now — even though maybe she only knows his because Dongmyeong mentioned it.

“Yeah, he’s so good.” Dongmyeong throws an arm around him and upon closer proximity to his face, Giwook can definitely smell the gin. “And once he gets his spot, we’ll rent an apartment and live together.”

Giwook flinches, freezes up when he sees Dongju raise his head. He’s been on his phone throughout the entire conversation Dongmyeong has been having with this girl, clearly disinterested, but there’s no way he didn’t hear that.

“Oh.” Dongmyeong blinks and smiles at Giwook, almost bashfully. He doesn’t notice Dongju. “Right, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about that yet. Sorry Giwook, you know alcohol makes me so talkative.”

“Even more than you usually are,” Giwook gives back, but he tries a smile. “It’s all good.”

Dongju catches his eye over Dongmyeong’s head, and his eyebrow wanders far up his forehead before he quietly excuses himself and disappears into the kitchen. Dongmyeong, still, barely takes notice of him.

Giwook doesn’t follow. He sits frozen in place and lets his shoulders fall.

“You could’ve just told me if you didn’t wanna live with me, you know.” Dongju’s fingers wind deep into Giwook’s hair, pull a little at the locks until it stings in his scalp, but he still isn’t looking at him. “Instead of making an agreement with my brother behind my back so you can get out of having to without insulting me, or whatever you were trying.”

He has Giwook spread out on his own bed — they snuck across the fire escape and through his window in silence when Dongmyeong passed out on the couch — and he’s ramming into him at a rather brutal pace.

Still, he’s not even giving Giwook room to enjoy himself too much. His hands pull at his hair, dig into his skin, and his hips are snapping roughly, stuttering into him every time Giwook clenches around him — not that Giwook is averse to any of that, but with Dongju talking to him so calmly on top of that, it’s all a little overwhelming.

Not even in an entirely bad way, just so that he is aware of it.

“I’m sorry,” Giwook chokes out, trying not to let the words turn into a moan when Dongju slams into him again. “I’m sorry, I swear. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

He chokes on a garbled noise when Dongju angles his cock right against his prostate.

“You kind of did, still.” Dongju’s eyes are as open and honest as ever when Giwook looks at him. It hurts to see even more, now. “Don’t lie, it only makes things worse. Dongmyeong can’t keep secrets from me.”

His words almost allow a heavy feeling to settle in Giwook’s gut, pin him down against the bedding in all the wrong ways, but then Dongju picks up his pace again and drops down to kiss him for the first time tonight. The hand in his hair serves to angle Giwook’s face into the direction he needs him, and Giwook can’t say he doesn’t enjoy this.

Dongju has never really been angry with him, doesn’t normally get too rough when they fuck even when he tops, but this is — this is nice. If making him mad entails this, Giwook could get used to it.

“It’s okay,” Dongju sighs eventually, between the bruising kisses he presses to his lips. “I’m not even that mad, I kind of already expected it. I just really wanted to fuck you.”

Giwook smiles against his lips. “Mhm, and why is that?”

“I don’t know.” Dongju pulls at his hair again, making Giwook arch up against him. “Somehow having to hide what we do in public gets me going. Stand next to me in front of people like you have any right to be there again and I might have to bite you.” He laughs at his own words, and Giwook laughs right back into his mouth.

“Oh, don’t think I wouldn’t enjoy that.”

Dongju pinches his arm and finally slams into him again.

When they’re finished and roll to lie beside each other on the bed, Giwook’s cum drying sticky on their bellies, there is nothing left of the heavy atmosphere this hookup started with. He finds Dongju smiling when he looks at him.

“You always this giddy after sex?” Giwook raises an eyebrow.

Dongju slaps at his chest, and when Giwook tries to hit him back, he captures his hand and sinks his teeth into it. Hard. Giwook tries to shake him off, whining, but Dongju doesn’t budge. He looks almost content.

“Don’t make fun of me,” he warns when he finally releases his hand again. “I was actually just laughing about the thought of you and Dongmyeong living together. I’m giving you two a week on your own.”

“Hey.” Giwook pinches him back, grinning at the affronted look Dongju gives him. “We’ll be just fine. I’ll bet you.”

“Oh, will you?” Dongju’s eyebrow disappears under the sweaty curls of his fringe as he pushes himself up on his arm to look at Giwook. His entire face still framed by afterglow, the rosy blush on his cheeks that is normally an alcohol tell, and a smile pulling at his lips that has nothing to do with post coital satisfaction — Giwook wants to reach out for him again, but he holds down his hand. “How much are you willing to bet?”

Not much, if Giwook thinks about it, but he can’t back out now. Not with Dongju looking at him like this.

“I’m willing to bet … well, if I lose, you can bite my hand all you want for, like, a day. Or so.” He almost immediately regrets the offer when Dongju goes for his hand immediately, teeth clacking like a threat. “Hey, only when you’ve won. If Dongmyeong and I manage to go two weeks without enlisting anyone’s help, I win.”

A laugh bubbles out of Dongju’s throat, and it makes Giwook grin, too. “Yeah, sure.” He swats at Giwook’s chest, and the grin doesn’t fall out of his face. “You’ll need help, eventually. I’ve basically already won this.”

Thinking about moving in and having to live on his own for the first time when he only just so knows how to operate a washing machine, Giwook finds he has to agree. “You know what,” he says, wrapping an arm around Dongju’s shoulders and pulling him back down against his chest. “I’m not betting anything. You’re right.”

“Mhm,” Dongju hums against his skin. Giwook’s can feel his lips forming a smile. “Am I, now?”

“You always are,” Giwook concedes, if only to coddle Dongju’s ego a little — no matter what he said, if he claimed he’s not mad, Giwook saw the flash of hurt in his eyes, the tight line of his lips when Dongmyeong mentioned it.

Dongju hums even louder, sounding content. “That sounds about right.”

When they finally get cleaned up and Dongju shrugs his clothes back on, Giwook catches him by the window and presses a kiss to his lips. Dongju seems surprised, but he smiles with crinkling eyes — Giwook stays leaned against the cool wall next to his window until he hears Dongju’s window shut on the other side of the ladder.

Dongmyeong is the one to find it.

When exactly he grew comfortable enough with Giwook’s family that he checks their mailbox on his way up, but he comes falling into their living room with a screech and a letter clutched in his hand.

It’s the acceptance from USW. Giwook tears open the envelope with near shaky hands, and the big letters glare at him. Dongmyeong, hovering over his shoulder at almost frothing at the mouth, lets out another excited sound. He wraps both of his arms around Giwook’s middle and shakes him, burying his face in the back of his neck.

For the moment, all Giwook really feels is numb. He can’t feel his fingers holding the letter.

“Oh, this is so exciting.” Dongmyeong lets him go at once and steps back. “We have to celebrate! Or maybe you just wanna celebrate with your family, that’s fine, too. We went out for dinner when Dongju got in —”

“No,” Giwook cuts him off, dropping a hand on his shoulder. “We do have to celebrate.”

A massive grin spreads on Dongmyeong’s face, and he drags Giwook into his room to get him dressed, though most of what he does is sit on Giwook’s desk chair and type away on his phone.

They leave half an hour later, and Dongju joins them in the hallway. Giwook didn’t know he was coming, but he clasps a friendly hand over Giwook’s shoulder and congratulates him and his eyes are so warm and friendly, Giwook doesn’t have it in him to even think of a complaint about having to awkwardly avert his eyes all night.

As it turns out, Dongmyeong is taking them to their family’s favorite place in town, and he couldn’t with a clean conscience go there without inviting Dongju. And Dongju, tame as a lamb and always perfectly in character, assures him that he’s just as glad that Giwook got accepted as they are, both because he’s happy for him and because it means he won’t be alone should Dongmyeong happen to go somewhere else, or not at all.

Giwook has to take his ears out of the conversation when he sees the perfectly innocent smile Dongju gives Dongmyeong at that, lashes fluttering like a doe’s — the first sign of trouble between them.

He only zooms back in when he hears his name dropping from Dongju’s lips — “Have you told Giwook what places you applied to?” The raise of his brow implies he said this not without intention.

“He hasn’t told me he’s applied anywhere at all,” Giwook says around the lump in his throat. Maybe it’s not wise to even play into Dongju’s hands like this, especially with the way Dongmyeong’s fist tightens on the table, but he feels a little hurt at the fact that Dongmyeong wouldn’t tell him about something this important.

Still, he knows all too well how fights between these two go, and he’d rather not get in the middle of that.

The application deadlines are coming up fast, and Giwook almost gave up hope that Dongmyeong would apply anywhere. But now here he is, red faced under the yellow lights, and he’s glaring at Dongju.

“I didn’t plan on telling anyone until I’m accepted and have fully decided to go.”

Giwook blinks. How long has Dongmyeong potentially been keeping this, then? “Wait, so you mean you paid all those application fees and wrote pages of applications when you’re not even sure you want to go yet?”

“Yeah, because he’s a fucking dumbass,” Dongju cuts in before Dongmyeong can reply.

“Will you shut it,” Dongmyeong hisses. His face pulls into a grimace at the look Dongju gives him. “You mind your own business. This is my decision.”

“No one is saying that it isn’t, we’re just telling you you’re making a stupid decision.”

Giwook winces at Dongju bringing him into it — not only because he doesn’t necessarily want to be involved in this, but also because he and Dongju have never stood together opposite of Dongmyeong. They’ve never been a _we_. He’s not sure if Dongju is just saying this for the sake of the argument, or if this is an unintentional slip up.

“We’re here to celebrate Giwook getting into USW, not fight about my personal decisions,” Dongmyeong reminds him in a milder voice. It’s more vicious when he adds, “I should’ve never asked you to come.”

Dongju stabs his chopsticks into his food so hard he nearly breaks the plate.

“It’s okay,” Giwook tries to say, even if it assures him the great displeasure of Dongju’s glare on his face. He wants to smile at him, he wants to tell them to stop fighting, but his lips stay sealed shut.

“I promise it will all be okay, Ju. You don’t have to worry about being alone, Giwook is with you.”

“Yeah, and you two will be living together regardless of where you end up. So where does that leave me?” Dongju shakes his head, as if to sort his thoughts. “But that’s not what I’m worried about at all. I’m worried about you not doing what you want to do because you’re too scared to even try.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Dongmyeong reminds him none too gently. “Don’t assume you do.”

When Dongju opens his mouth to reply, Giwook cuts in, “Guys. Please.”

Dongju sits back in his chair, a hard line to his mouth, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“I just don’t really understand.” Dongju is staring up at the ceiling when Giwook turns his head to him. Sweat glistens on his forehead like pearls, and his flushed chest rises with every breath he takes. “He’s so smart, and he told me it’s what he wants to do, what he’s passionate about, and yet he’s so hesitant. Because he’s scared. Of what?”

Giwook twirls one of Dongju’s curls around his finger. “I think you need to let him make his own decisions.”

Dongju slaps his chest with a groan. “I know that. And I am letting him, I won’t violently protest or enroll into the schools for him. I’m just worried about him. What else is he going to do?”

“There are plenty of things he can do that won’t require a university degree. He has a job right now, doesn’t he?”

“Of course, obviously there are.” Dongju sighs. Dark circles under his eyes stand in stark contrast to his skin, paler than usual. This is evidently taking a much bigger toll on him than he’s trying to let on. “And of course he does, it’s not that I don’t believe in him or that I’m trying to shame him for considering options other than university, I’m just worried he’ll never be truly happy if he doesn’t do what he wants to do just because he’s scared of failing.”

“Maybe he’ll find something else that he really wants to do,” Giwook suggests. A smile pulls at his cheeks when Dongju looks up at him. “We’re not deciding about our lives right now, Ju. This isn’t final. It’s very much possible that I’ll get a degree in musical composition and end up doing something completely different after all.”

Dongju’s eyes find his face, and he frowns. He looks almost worried. “But music is your dream.”

“Of course it is right now. It’s all I know. I have no idea about what’s waiting for me out there.” An entire world of options waiting for them out in the world, things they’ve never even considered. It’s not all said and done with university, and it worries him that Dongju seems to think that way. That he seems to think that with enrolling into university, he will sign his entire life away to a degree in film and having a career in that field.

That he thinks that Dongmyeong not getting into the field that he maybe wants to be in right now, at the tender age of twenty, not knowing anything of the world beyond their hometown, means that he might never be happy again.

He can see Dongju’s brows furrow, drawing lines across his forehead, as he considers Giwook’s words. His lips hang open just an inch, eyes soft and thoughtful. The idea seems to please him, at least.

“I promise he will be okay,” Giwook adds, and he has to smile when Dongju looks up at him. And even if they will struggle in the future, and all of them might, no matter how sure their paths seem to be — right now is really not the time to be worrying about that just yet. University hasn’t even started for them.

Giwook presses a kiss to Dongju’s chest and with a hearty laugh, Dongju rolls back on top of him.

On the nightstand next to them, Dongju’s eyes must catch on the digital clock he has positioned there. “Midnight,” he whispers against Giwook’s lips, and they both smile. Dongju is so addicting Giwook almost forgets what that means until Dongju separates their lips just enough to say, “Happy birthday, college boy.”

Giwook grins, and Dongju runs his tongue along his teeth. “Thank you.”

The spark to Dongju’s eyes is far from innocent, and Giwook can almost guess where this is leading. There are certain things he’s learned to appreciate about Dongju more than others. “You wanna go another round to celebrate?”

And Giwook doesn’t have to think about his answer for a second.

Dongmyeong gets accepted into USW’s daughter university of sciences, and he decides to go.

He tells Giwook this over lunch, and since he even seems mildly giddy about it, Giwook discards his plans of confronting Dongju about whether or not he forced him into it — he doesn’t believe he did, anyway.

But Dongju seems pleased nonetheless, which Giwook supposes is fair. Sure, it’s not really his thing to agree or disagree on, or to be happy about or not, because it’s Dongmyeong’s decision in the end and Dongju’s opinion and reaction should not be a counting factor in it, but Giwook still thinks his happiness is justifiable.

SSC is only a few streets down from USW’s campus, and doesn’t even offer on campus housing, so they inevitably have to start looking for a place at least somewhat close to their respective schools. Both universities are not crazy far from their current neighborhood, only about half an hour by train, but the tickets there are expensive, and just like he told Dongmyeong when he tried to convince him of this, they do want to get away from home.

The place Giwook finds and they eventually agree on is only two train stations from their schools, and it comes at an affordable price because of the busy street right next to it and a leaky tap in the bathroom.

It’s nothing they can’t handle, not for that rent, and they put both their names on the agreement.

And after that, the weeks before the semester starts seem to pass far too quickly.

Youngjo calls to let Giwook know he’s playing his tracks on his show, and to make sure he really is enrolling into their department (“I’m an RA and I must’ve missed your name on the new dorm lists?” to which Giwook replies, “Yeah, no, I already have a place off campus. Sorry, no catching me there.”)

Dongju doesn’t sign up for the dorms, either, and instead he finds a gaggle of guys from their university looking for a fourth roommate on craigslist. “Separate kitchen and living room, a nice bathroom and my own room!” he gloats.

He still sneaks across the shaky landing of the fire escape a few times a week — Giwook’s heart stops in his chest every time he sees him do the little leap off his window ledge onto the landing, much more so when he does it the other way around, no matter how many times Dongju assures him that he and Dongmyeong perfected it years ago. Giwook just takes to not watching him do it, and just helping him up into his own window.

They still fuck, although most of their encounters these days are colored by something that almost tastes like nostalgia already, like they are holding onto memories that will soon fade into the backs of their minds.

It makes Giwook sick to his stomach, but he doesn’t give the feeling too much thought.

Dongju is there the day Giwook and Dongmyeong move into their apartment, he helps them carry boxes upstairs and he and Dongmyeong sit in the living room for at least half an hour, tasking themselves with meticulously organizing the pictures on the shelf while Giwook struggles with reassembling his bed.

They fill the apartment with life within under a week; Dongmyeong hangs up pictures of them and their friends, and Giwook hangs up his guitar. Youngjo gifts him one of his drawings, and Giwook puts it up too, for the fun of it.

Where the place was empty and grey before they moved in, there is now a couch and some mismatched pillows Dongmyeong brought from home, a stained rug they got at a garage sale, some other busted cabinets they got at similar places, two somewhat fancy desks courtesy of their parents, their beds. Keys on the counter and shoes by the door, the rush of water in the background, always a hum in the air when Dongmyeong is home.

This doesn’t feel depressing. Giwook could get used to this.

Dongju is with them a lot at first, always hanging out on their couch — the semester doesn’t start for another few weeks, and he’s not allowed to move into his place just yet, even though he’s already in contact with his roommates.

He’s also lonely at home, as he confesses to Giwook in the dark of the night in the new bedroom, when Dongmyeong is out with some other friends. He and Dongmyeong have never in their lives lived apart from each other, used to even share a room when they were smaller and didn’t live in Suwon yet, and he didn’t quite anticipate how boring it would be to not have him around at all anymore.

“Can’t just go into his room when I’m bored and lonely, because then I’ll just be bored and lonely there. And you’re not there, either,” and Giwook really wonders where he gets the words from with three fingers in his ass.

He thinks he understands, though, he doesn’t know what he’d do if Dongmyeong was suddenly a thirty-minute train ride away from him. Most of his life’s exciting activities rely almost entirely on the older Son twin, while the few even more _exciting_ activities rely entirely on the younger one.

Dongju doesn’t have to risk his life on the fire escape to get into his pants anymore, but he does have to take the train and hope that Dongmyeong will still be gone for long enough once he finally makes it here.

“Soon I will be at least kind of close again,” Dongju promises in a whisper when they part at the door.

A lump lodges in Giwook’s throat, and he almost doesn’t want to ask. Dongmyeong will be back soon, and Dongju has to be gone before he is, or else they’ll have some explaining to do, and he knows this. He knows Dongju has to leave, because his train is also going soon, and he wants to be home in a time frame his parents wouldn’t question. Still, around the weight in his throat, Giwook asks, “Will we continue this once the semester starts?” and he half expects Dongju to laugh, shake his head and tell him, _No, of course not._

Because why would they? This whole arrangement was born primarily out of desperation due to lack of other available partners their age in the area, and at university there would be plenty of other people to see. Plenty of other people to experiment with, a chance to gather experience outside of the context of their childhood home. Surely they would be able to find people they are actually interested in among the student body here.

Giwook tells himself that this is what he wants, that it is what would be best for both of them.

But Dongju just blinks at him, evidently surprised. He clears his throat, and his face grows warm under Giwook’s hand. “Well,” he says awkwardly. “We don’t have to. But we also don’t have to stop if you don’t want to.”

“Let’s not, then,” Giwook says way too quickly. He sees Dongju’s eyes widen. “Not stop, I mean. Let’s not stop.”

Dongju laughs and presses a smiling kiss to his mouth. “Okay. Let’s not stop. We can talk about this another time, all right? I have to go.” And he’s still smiling when he presses a last peck to his lips and finally pulls away.

Giwook stays leaning in the doorframe, head dropped against the cold metal, until he hears the front door of the building slam shut downstairs. He sighs and pulls the door shut behind himself, too.

“I miss when we would hang out like, all the time. Now all we do is study together.”

Giwook finds Dongmyeong pouting when he looks up from his textbook, and he raises an eyebrow. Of course, Dongmyeong has long discarded the notes he swore he’d study today, and is blinking gigantic eyes at Giwook, instead.

It’s been a couple of months, now — the semester has long started, Dongju has moved into his apartment and even brought one of his roommates along when he came around to visit Dongmyeong because he thinks they’re worth meeting even if Giwook could say nothing about the guy except _tall_ , and Giwook is wrapped up in studying.

“Yeah, because it’s all I ever do,” Giwook mumbles under his breath. He taps his pencil against his lip and turns back to his reading. “Besides, we also live together, we eat breakfast together, we shit in the same toilet — I think we share enough of each others’ living space, mhm?”

Dongmyeong doesn’t say anything for a while, and Giwook doesn’t have to check to know he’s pouting harder.

“I feel like you never tell me things anymore,” is what he says eventually, and his eyes are at least semiserious when Giwook looks at him again. His stomach drops. “I don’t know what’s going on in your life anymore.”

A laugh pushes past Giwook’s lips, and he hopes it doesn’t sound panicked. “That’s because nothing is going on.” The pencilled word he sets down at the bottom of his notes becomes just a bit shaky. “Literally nothing, Myeong. If anything were to happen, you’d be the first to know because you’d be there for it. I don’t even leave this place.”

“You leave for class,” Dongmyeong says around his pout. “You could be meeting people there and, I don’t know, invite them over while I’m gone.” Giwook’s heart drops right after his stomach. “Promise you aren’t?”

Giwook swallows, mind racing. Is there any way Dongmyeong could know, has Dongju told on them, or did he find something in his room, a spot on the sheets Giwook missed while washing, a shirt that isn’t his? Is this a test to figure out if Giwook is really lying to him about this? Slowly, though, he smiles and hopes it isn’t too shaky. “Of course not.”

If Dongmyeong really is aware of what has been going on, and knows how long it’s been happening, Giwook supposes there is little he can salvage by coming clean right now. Not to mention the things he could ruin.

Dongmyeong stares at him for a moment longer, as if to gauge if he’s telling the truth — but then he shrugs, and actually pulls his notes back in front of him. “Okay,” he says. “You know I won’t be mad if you make new friends, right? Or if you, you know, find someone. It’s not like that, I just hate feeling like we aren’t close anymore.”

“Of course we still are, Myeong. We have always been, right?”

But Giwook still feels sick to his stomach when he puts away his notes an hour later and packs up to retreat into his room. It rests heavy in his guts, the feeling of lying to Dongmyeong leaves a bitter taste on his tongue.

He’s never actively lied to him, he doesn’t think. At least not intentionally. Or when he had a way out of the lie. It’s not something he usually does in general, sneaking around and keeping secrets from the people he loves. He may be a quiet person, better on his own, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not honest.

In fact, sometimes he thinks that it makes him even more honest. He’s not one to spill secrets, at least.

But ever since the Dongju thing, he’s started doing just that. He’s been keeping secrets from his best friend, and now he lied to his face. His hoping, honest, open face, asking for confirmation on the one thing he was unsure of.

Giwook wants to throw up, wants to grab his phone and call Dongju, text him and tell him they can’t keep doing this or they will at least have to tell Dongmyeong, tell him he’s no longer willing to keep secrets. He wants to do everything at once, but he just shrugs on a sweatshirt and crawls into his bed.

This is a fight for another day.

“Ah, I really missed this.” Dongmyeong throws an arm around Giwook’s shoulders. His breath already reeks of tequila, and they’ve only been here for about an hour — Giwook didn’t even see him do the shots.

This is a lot more packed than they are used to from their little high school parties, and the people here are drinking a lot heavier than Giwook would have expected from a bunch of people that have got to be struggling with their studying just as much as he does. It was a piece of work for Dongmyeong to get him to come along, and he isn’t sure how willing he is to lose tomorrow to being too sick to even get up. Exams are coming up.

“Did you not miss this, Giwook?” Dongmyeong sounds like he did that day in their apartment, lost and unsure.

Giwook is quick to assure him that he did, that he’s glad to have come along, and Dongmyeong seems satisfied enough. He bounces off to get Giwook a drink and seems to recognize at least ten faces on the way.

Of course Dongmyeong would already have tons of friends here — Giwook doesn’t even want to ask how he got invited to this, or if they invited him at all. He just gives the people looking at him awkward smiles and waits.

“I don’t think he’s gonna come back,” a voice says from behind him, and Giwook turns around to find a stranger smiling at him, leaned against the makeshift bar. Upon Giwook raising his eyebrow, the stranger laughs. “You’re here with Dongmyeong, right?” and when Giwook nods, he reaches out a hand. “Yeah, I’m in his anatomy class. He said hi to me earlier. Now he’s saying hi to everyone, so that’ll take a while. I’m Harin.”

“Giwook.” He takes the hand. “And yeah, I figured. I just don’t really have anyone else to talk to.”

“Well, you can talk to me.” The smile Harin offers is kind, and Giwook has to admit he’s handsome — he seems like exactly the kind of guy Dongmyeong would gladly latch onto for the rest of the night.

It creeps him out more than just a little that he’s able to tell Dongmyeong’s type without even having him around.

Harin is really kind, at least, stays at a respectful distance and makes pleasant conversation — he gets Giwook the drink he’s been waiting for and he actually returns. They sit down on the backrest of the couch, right behind some people playing some kind of drinking game that involves a lot of spilled drinks, and Harin tells Giwook about his plans not to drink too much so he could study in the morning. Giwook lets him know that he knows his pain all too well.

It’s nice, to be meeting someone new. Someone he hasn’t known practically all his life. It’s exciting, almost, makes Giwook’s skin buzz and a comfortable warmth settle in the pit of his belly.

“So you’re from downtown?” Harin asks, and Giwook nods eagerly.

“Yeah, me and Dongmyeong both. We were next door neighbors, so we’ve basically been friends since we were ten, and we decided it would be best and probably the most fun if we moved in together now.”

“Oh, that’s so cool.” Harin nods. “I’ve always wished I had a friendship like that. My oldest friend I met in high school, and while we do both go here now, we don’t live together. He used to live in a dorm, but I couldn’t do that. Not only because SSC doesn’t have any on campus dorms, but also because I don’t think I would survive in a dorm.”

“Ah, I feel you on that.” Giwook puts his hand over his heart and laughs. “Well, I have to live off campus anyway if I want to live with Dongmyeong, but living in a dorm was never an option for me, anyway.”

Harin grins. “I actually think my friend lives with Dongmyeong’s brother now that he’s moved out of the dorms.”

Giwook picks his head up at that, raising his eyebrows. “Oh? Dongju?”

And like fate wants it, a head turns next to him just as he says that and he gets a better look at someone who was just trying to push past him — he’s met with Dongju’s face, because who else could it be?

“Oh, hi Giwook!” Dongju sounds just a bit too enthusiastic given the public setting. He staggers forward, even closer towards Giwook than he already was, and his hand wraps loosely around Giwook’s wrist. Looking at his face in surprise at the sudden proximity, one they’ve never dared in front of other people, he finds Dongju’s eyes wide and swimming, and his cheeks rosy red even in the colorful lights flashing over their heads.

He sighs. “How much have you had to drink?”

Dongju tilts his head back and lets out a little sound, almost like a giggle. “Mhh. I don’t know,” he says, and it sounds like the truth. “Dongmyeong wanted me to do shots with him earlier. Maybe half an hour ago.”

Giwook wants to sigh even harder, but Harin cuts him off before he can, “Are you Dongju?”

Dongju seems little bothered about someone asking his name, a floaty smile taking over his face. “Yes! I am.”

“Oh, that’s so cool.” The smile Harin directs at him is even nicer than anything he’s given Giwook in their entire conversation. “I’m actually friends with your roommate, Hyungu?”

Dongju’s face lights up. “Oh! Hyungu, right. Are you Harin then? He’s talked about you.”

They fall into conversation about this mysterious third person Giwook doesn’t know, and Dongju is still swaying on his feet. Harin doesn’t offer to get him a drink the way he did Giwook, which may be for the best. Dongju’s hand comes to rest on top of Giwook’s thigh as if to steady himself, but he doesn’t take it away again.

His fingers trail along the insides of Giwook’s thigh, and Giwook’s entire body tenses up.

Dongju isn’t even looking at him. His eyes are fixed on Harin’s face and his lips move around words Giwook can no longer hear over the buzz in his ears. It’s the echo of the rush in his veins, blood rushing up into his face and down into other regions at the same time, almost leaving him dizzy with the alcohol mixing into his system still.

He takes a big gulp of his drink and steadies himself against the table next to him. Dongju’s eyes finally land on his face, and a small smile pulls at his lips as he digs his fingers into the muscle of his thigh, climbs further up.

He turns back to continue his conversation with Harin as if nothing is happening, even though Harin’s eyes very visibly fall down to the hand he keeps on Giwook’s thigh — which Dongju relaxes upon noticing.

The sight makes Harin stumble over his words for a moment, and his eyes find Giwook’s face. Questioning.

Giwook grasps the chance of Dongju being momentarily distracted — maybe embarrassed enough that Harin noticed what he was doing — and wraps his hand around Dongju’s wrist to pull him off. They can’t be doing this kind of shit in public, and he especially can’t act like he’s okay with it when someone who’s so drunk does this to him.

Because obviously Dongju is beyond gone if he’s this reckless.

But Dongju doesn’t give up that easily — his hand returns to Giwook’s thigh once Harin has recovered and talks to him like normal again, without the awkward stammer to his tone. It kneads into the flesh there, palm digging into it right below Giwook’s hip and fingers curling around the inside — Giwook tries to push him away again, but Dongju doesn’t budge and their fingers end up in a weird tangle on his thigh.

Harin awkwardly excuses himself, and Dongju turns to him with a pout. “Now you ruined all my fun.”

Giwook closes his eyes. His hand moves on its own to push Dongju’s away with finality. “I really don’t think you want to be doing this right now,” Giwook tells him, holding his hand at a distance. “You’re _so_ drunk.”

“I know.” Dongju’s pout only deepens. “I’m really drunk and I don’t want to be alone.”

“Dongmyeong is here,” Giwook informs him. He’s not anywhere near them, as a look around confirms, but he could be any second. Only god knows how fast Dongmyeong can appear and disappear after a few tequila rounds.

“I know he is.” Dongju flicks him against the shoulder, gently. “I’m only this drunk because of him.”

“Yeah,” Giwook confirms. “He’s here and he at least said he would be coming back for me. If you don’t want him to know you might want to back off, because I don’t know if I can convincingly act like this is entirely new behavior.” Not with the way his body reacts to just having Dongju around him, immediately following his touches.

They’ve gotten so used to each other, months of sharing his bed with no one else have Giwook accustomed to Dongju’s every move, have him following along on pure instinct, even if he knows they shouldn’t be doing this.

Because they’re in public and Dongmyeong could be around the next corner, and also because Dongju is drunk — and while Giwook doubts that he would suddenly change his mind about wanting to sleep with him after they’ve been doing just that for months, he also knows that you can never be too sure.

Dongju whines high in his throat, but he pulls back a little — only to stumble over his feet and nearly kiss the floor.

“All right,” Giwook pushes up from his seat and takes Dongju by the arm. “Let me take you home.”

The way Dongju’s face lights up immediately is so comical, and Giwook has to hold back a laugh and, regrettably, let him down, “Yeah, no, not like that. Take you home to _sleep_.”

Dongju’s pout returns even harder, but he lets Giwook guide him back to the door. Stepping out into the cold air on the porch feels like waking up from a trance, like chewing too much mint gum and drinking water on it, even if it’s clouded with marijuana smoke and Dongju still stumbles next to him. Giwook doesn’t hold on to him.

Instead, he pulls out his phone and lets Dongmyeong know that, _I’m taking your brother home, he can barely walk._

Anxiety sparks fresh inside of him when he sends the text, boring deep into his bones. They feel unusually heavy and he has to stuff his shaking hands into the pockets of his sweater to hide them as he leads Dongju through the crowd at the front. Surely, though, Dongmyeong wouldn’t think Giwook bringing Dongju home is weird, right?

He would, if he could see the way Dongju latches onto Giwook’s side in the back of the taxi Giwook can barely afford, and how Giwook just lets him. Because he isn’t an ass and he knows Dongju gets clingier, the clingiest, when he’s drunk, and also because he doesn’t want to push him away, for his own sake. Dongju is drunk, but he’s also warm and trusting, and Giwook feels like he can breathe for the first time in a long time.

Dongju trusts him, fully and vulnerably, and no one is here to catch them. He kisses the top of his head.

Mornings come with a softer Dongju, cheeks tinted just a bit red in the better ways, his skin warmed from his bed where Giwook slides his hands under the thick fabric of his sweater. It drives him insane, how warm he is. They don’t usually mean to stay the night, mean to return home so Dongmyeong won’t get suspicious, but they never complain.

Not when he gets to kiss Dongju silly, press into his lips while they’re still sleepy and pliant, red like rose petals.

He must have fallen asleep on the side of Dongju’s bed, still in his sweater and jeans and stinking of alcohol, and he wakes when Dongju stirs against the pillows above him, rising with the morning sun.

At least the clothes still on his body promise him that he kept his word not to sleep with Dongju — somewhere between the taxi seat and the door to Dongju’s apartment the drinks he had with Harin must have kicked in, because he barely remembers how they even made it in, and he evidently fell asleep right away.

A hand rakes through his hair, comes down to rest against his cheek. Sleep warmed.

“Hi.” Dongju is already looking at him when he angles his face up towards him, eyes shining through the line of his lashes, the sun drawing long shadows of them along his cheeks. His hand falls away from Giwook’s face at the movement, but it rests against the sheets right next to him, always within reach. Just like he is. No matter where Giwook reaches, his fingers always meet him somewhere. “You’re still here.”

“I am.” Too much space between their faces, Giwook wants to be so much closer. “I fell asleep, I don’t remember.”

There are only flashes of the taxi driver, the crumpled banknote Giwook pressed into his hand, Dongju’s warmth at his side. The open layout of the apartment, the empty living room. Dongju against the sheets of his bed.

Lips pressing against his, hungry teeth digging into his flesh, hands in his hair and his own hand under Dongju’s shirt until he ripped away. Told him that they can’t, that he has to go to sleep. _I’ll see you_ , he told him, he can still taste the words on his tongue, but he watched as Dongju got changed, and he fell asleep against his bed.

Now Dongju pulls him up the bed, closer to his face. His hands wind back into Giwook’s hair, where they have always loved to remain. “Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

He’s so warm, and his leg slides over Giwook’s hip, heel pressing into Giwook’s lower back, and Giwook is only a man. He wouldn’t normally give Dongju the satisfaction of giving in so easily, but maybe mornings make him more pliant, too. Their lips sink together like it’s natural, the way things are supposed to be going.

They lie deeply intertwined — Giwook slides his hand into Dongju’s nape to angle his head and kiss him deeper, and Dongju follows without hesitation. Giwook is not the only one conditioned.

“Are you gonna fuck me now that I’m not drunk anymore?” Dongju’s eyes spark with mirth.

The laugh that breaks out of Giwook is near guttural, and he pushes Dongju back by his shoulder to roll on top of him. Dongju grins up at him, eyes like embers, and his hands fall against Giwook’s shoulders.

“You’re impossible,” Giwook lets him know, but he’d be lying if he said the way Dongju’s thighs fall open almost automatically to let him settle between them doesn’t make him run a little hotter. “What about your roommates?”

Dongju shrugs, and the smile doesn’t leave his face. It reflects in his eyes like a promise of the devil. “Keonhee’s gone for the weekend, at his parents’ house, and Hyungu probably went home with Harin. They usually do after parties. Woongie won’t wake up before lunchtime, and nothing can wake him. He’d sleep through the apocalypse.”

Giwook hums against the skin of Dongju’s cheek, where he presses his lips, until Dongju squirms. He tries to push him away, but Giwook doesn’t let up. He sinks his teeth into the soft flesh, gently. “Doesn’t your head hurt?”

“Mhh.” Dongju locks his ankles behind Giwook’s back. “I’m willing to ignore that for now.”

Giwook sighs, “You are a little freak, you know that?” but he dives into Dongju’s lips regardless, hungry for the taste he’s become so accustomed to. He chases his warmth, presses closer until Dongju whines. Hooks a hand under the bend of Dongju’s knee and draws him down the bed, closer towards him.

In a rare moment of his lips being free, Dongju gasps, “I don’t have any spare bedsheets. Be careful.” And Giwook has to laugh a little as he bends him in the middle and kisses his skin wherever he can reach.

Dongju is softer and warmer in the mornings, still untainted by the events of the day, no raging fire in his eyes to pin Giwook to the bedding with. He’s a force to be reckoned with on normal days, a storm in the daylight, he has hands that burn like the devil’s, his eyes carry the deceiving light of a demon’s. A fallen angel — but when he’s like this, rosy around the edges from the warmth of his bed, pliant and smiling, his wings remain pristine white.

Giwook doesn’t rush, but their teeth still clack when they kiss. The hunger will always outweigh, in the end.

_I don’t think this was a good idea._ His fingers shake as he types, sends the text. Dongmyeong won’t see it anytime soon, he’s probably too busy with his current boy of the month now that he has the apartment to himself, but Giwook is still nervous — mostly about the guy possibly seeing him texting, and being even more disappointed.

More than he already was when he walked in and saw Giwook — awkward and scrawny as he is, and with half of his messy hair hidden by the hood of his sweater — instead of the alluring beauty that was likely promised to him.

Dongmyeong has a knack for describing things as a lot nicer than they actually are, and Giwook didn’t miss the way the guy’s smile fell when he spotted _him_ at their table.

Of course, though, he’s been nothing but exceptionally kind ever since he sat down opposite of him, and Giwook has to write it up to him that he didn’t just turn around and walk back out. Dongmyeong also has a thing for picking out very kind men, and Giwook almost feels bad for this guy. And for himself. He’s just a little wary of becoming a trash bin for Dongmyeong to send the men he lets down to, so they won’t be too disappointed.

Only that in direct comparison to Dongmyeong, Giwook will of course always disappoint.

This guy’s name is Geonhak, and he’s cradling a cup of some kind of tea between his hands, and he’s making friendly conversation about how much he dislikes coffee while Giwook sips his near pure caffeine through his straw.

This isn’t meant to work, because it was a bad idea, and because Giwook never wanted this in the first place. He’s sure Geonhak knows, either because Dongmyeong already told him that Giwook was hesitant from the start, or because he feels the same, or because he’s noticed throughout their conversation at the very latest.

Giwook has never been the most easy conversation partner, not even for someone as bubbly as Dongmyeong, and he doesn’t enjoy meeting new people for the sole reason that he has to talk to them, at least not when he’s sober.

With Dongmyeong, and even with Dongju, they have long learned that him not talking doesn’t mean anything bad. That it’s not his preferred way of communicating, and that it doesn’t mean he doesn’t like them. They have learned how to communicate through looks and touches and smiles. To know when he doesn’t feel like talking, and how to get to him without forcing him. It’s why he feels so at ease around them.

And he does talk around them, because he knows he won’t step on feet there, won’t make anyone dislike him. Still not as much as someone like Dongmyeong would, but more than he does around strangers like this.

Geonhak is nice, and he offers to pay for Giwook’s second drink when he digs his hand into his pocket and realizes he forgot the money Dongmyeong gave him on the kitchen counter — the monetary compensation, kind of a lure for Giwook to at least go out for coffee that he wouldn’t have to pay for himself.

He still did, bought himself something before Geonhak even arrived to calm his spiking anxiety, and he used his own money because it felt wrong to use Dongmyeong’s date money when the date hadn’t even started yet.

Giwook declines the offer, and Geonhak runs out of things to talk about, too, and they sit in silence

“Listen,” Giwook starts, clearing his throat. “I really hope I won’t offend you by saying this, but I don’t think this is meant to be. I’m sorry that Dongmyeong convinced you it’d be nice to go out with me, and I just wasted your time.”

“No, no.” Geonhak shakes his head. “It’s absolutely fine. I think you’re right, this isn’t meant to be, but you didn’t waste my time. I mean, I guess Dongmyeong told me you were a super talkative person and were actually looking to go out with someone, both of which I now think are untrue, but that isn’t a bad thing. It was still nice talking to you.”

Giwook doesn’t think he believes him, not with the way the conversation between them stuttered and halted and most of it was Giwook’s fault, but he still types his number into the phone Geonhak hands him.

And when he leaves the cafe and checks his phone, he finds a text from an unknown number that he saves under a new contact that he names Geonhak, and one from Dongju.

_Hey, something came up tonight so you can’t come over. Sorry._

Giwook sighs and pockets his phone. Not even that to look forward to.

“So how was your date?” Dongju asks into the space between their lips.

Giwook blinks at him, already dizzy from the warmth of Dongju in his lap and the rush in his veins that always comes with kissing him, and it takes him a moment to register what he said. And even when he does, realizes that Dongmyeong must have told him about Geonhak, the only thing he can think to reply is, “Huh?”

“Dongmyeong told me he set you up on a date with one of past flings that was looking for something more.” Dongju’s finger trails along his neck and goosebumps run down his back. “So how did that go?”

“Not very well, as you can probably imagine.” Giwook grimaces at the pure thought. “It was so awkward.”

Dongju hums and kisses him again. “Good.”

Which takes Giwook aback just a little, and he raises an eyebrow. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

Dongju snorts, but he latches his lips back onto Giwook’s right after, as if to drown any other words. “Keep on dreaming,” he says eventually, and rocks his hips down against Giwook’s.

It serves to make Giwook forget about the conversation, and he lets himself fall back with Dongju on top of him. Their lips clash messily, tongues playing with no technique, like they are shy teenagers exploring for the first time again. Dongju is warm and heavy on top of him, weighs him down, grounds him. Giwook pulls him closer.

The sex is always good — and Giwook finds himself so incredibly deep in the game that his dick grows rock hard just from the way Dongju moans into his ear as he unfolds him, three fingers in his ass and a hand at his hip — but he finds the pure proximity to Dongju is becoming increasingly more thrilling, too. Lying with him when they’re done, not even touching but just coexisting, his breaths in the space next to Giwook’s ear, a hand next to his.

The back of a taxi after too much tequila at a stupid party, a warmth at this side and inside his belly. Like a home’s heard, not only when he’s sinking into him, but also when he presses a kiss into his hair.

He supposes this is not a good sign, not when he hovers over Dongju in his bed and kisses him just to hear the little sounds he makes whenever he pulls away, and he almost forgets he’s supposed to be fucking him. It’s an absolutely disastrous sign when he moans Dongju’s name when he comes — something he’s never done before.

Dongju leaves so much earlier than normal, and he doesn’t wait for Giwook to kiss him goodbye by the door. Giwook sinks against the door frame and decides that nothing is happening.

“ _Fuck_ , you actually have an ass in these pants.” Giwook digs his fingers into the flush, pleased at the way it gives.

Dongju hisses and pinches his arm. “Fuck you,” he says, but his legs fall open, anyway. Accept Giwook between them and lock around his hips as if to hold him in place right there. Where he belongs.

In the backseat of this cramped car, parked outside another stupid college party and it’s fall now and midterms are over and Giwook has the time to actually get wasted. And to fuck Dongju in the back of this car, legs angled and bent weirdly to accommodate the space, and pushed closer together than ever. Their kisses turn sloppy quickly.

Months have passed since that last party, and maybe Giwook should’ve said no to Dongmyeong’s offer of tequila shots, which are always a bad idea, and maybe he should’ve said no to the blunt some people passed around.

But he didn’t, and now he’s here and his head is swimming as he kisses Dongju.

This isn’t even his car, but Dongju got the keys from one of his roommates and promised they wouldn’t care. He almost begged for Giwook to do it in here, and who is Giwook to deny him anything? When Dongju looked like that in his new pants and the shirt he’s got tucked into them, and Giwook wasn’t allowed to touch in there.

But out here, they are at least somewhat shielded from the eyes of the party, and Giwook has always suspected that Dongju might be into the danger of potentially getting caught — why else would he engage in this with him?

Though he supposes that also frames him as an exhibitionist.

“Can’t even wait to get somewhere private, hm?” Giwook whispers into his ear, and Dongju pinches him. The tiny prick of pain only keeps him going, and he thinks Dongju is aware. “What if someone sees, hm?”

“Fuck you,” Dongju hisses. “Get out of your pants.”

And that Giwook does gladly, though it’s a bit of a hassle to get them off in the small space and it ends up with both of them giggling against each other's lips. It’s even more of a hassle to free Dongju out of the tight pants that he, as he admits, spent half an hour getting into with the sole purpose of having people stare at his ass.

He doesn’t say that he wanted _Giwook_ specifically to stare at his ass, so Giwook doesn’t take it that way.

They get their pants down enough eventually, and Dongju’s hair fans out around his head when he falls down against the seat — his back has to bend awkwardly and Giwook has to hoist his hips up onto his thighs to make it fit, but Dongju seems almost content, closing his eyes and letting a smile pull at his lips. Without looking, he fishes a packet of lube and a condom out of the pocket of his jacket, and hands it to Giwook.

Giwook hitches his thigh up high by a hand under his knee — making Dongju gasp out — and licks a stripe along the skin, whispers, “Freak,” against it, breath fanning over the wet spot. He watches as goosebumps rise on Dongju’s skin and smiles to himself. Presses kisses further up the inside of the thigh, fingers dancing along.

“People are gonna see the car rock and know exactly what’s going on in here,” he whispers into Dongju’s warm skin as he pushes a finger into him, works his way around like he knows he has to. The way he knows Dongju likes, two fingers crooked into his prostate right when they start, he’s told him he enjoys a bit of a burn. Dirty words in his ear. “What if someone saw you pull me in here? What if everyone knew how desperate you are?”

Giwook has never been too comfortable with dirty talking, never been too confident in his abilities in it, but the words make Dongju shiver under him and he keens a little, so he guesses he’s doing everything right.

He kisses the inside of Dongju’s knee when he pushes into him, and Dongju’s face screws up.

He looks so good like this — he took time getting ready for this, Giwook can tell, though he knows that it was for the party in general, for himself and all the people he would meet there, not for him. The eyeshadow smudged around his eyes, the tint to his lips that makes him look even rosier. A bit of glitter on his cheek. The shirt that now lies half undone across his chest, fabric flowing like water when Giwook slides his hand under it.

Everything is so much at once, Giwook’s nerves are supposed to be subdued but instead they spark. His eyes maximize every sparkle on Dongju’s body into a flash, and he feels like he’s burning alive.

Dongju is pushed up on the seat, and he has to steady himself against the driver’s seat to keep from rocking too much, which is when Giwook notices that his entire body is flushed red. Not only his face has grown rosy, but his chest and his hands and even the backs of his elbows. Giwook’s hands run along the places, so warm.

The desire to kiss every inch of his body burns inside of him, but he has to hold back for now.

Dongju is hot and tight around his cock, molded together perfectly. His hands fit just right around the curve of Dongju’s cheeks, and he wishes he could bend down enough to kiss him without breaking his spine. Instead, he watches him, rocks up into the tight heat and watches as Dongju unfurls, cherry lips dropping open and singing the sweetest praise. The blush on his cheeks deepening, sweat pearling at his temple as he gasps.

Giwook can’t stop watching him, and he comes buried deep inside of him a second after Dongju does, with the image of Dongju’s orgasming face seared onto the backs of his lids, and a name heavy on his tongue.

He doesn’t let it slip this time, but it sits there, as if waiting to be said.

Instead, he watches with heavy eyes as Dongju slowly licks his own cum off his fingers, never taking his eyes off Giwook’s face. Like he’s gauging every reaction, and Giwook supposes that he is. That this night is far from over.

He waits with open arms when Giwook crashes down against him, accepting the dissatisfaction of his cock slipping out his ass at the angle, to kiss the cum out of his mouth. It’s nasty, really, but Giwook is also high and drunk and doesn’t really know why everything Dongju does drives him insane. It’s gross, but it’s also _hot_.

When they’ve finally calmed down — for a moment Giwook sits back to watch Dongju’s face after their kiss, deep red cheeks and bitten lips and his eyes closed in bliss, spit and now cum smeared over his lower lip — they clean up at least some of the mess on Dongju’s belly and the lube still leaking out of his ass with some tissues they find in the glove compartment, and wrap the used condom up in another one. Somehow, they manage to get dressed.

Letting fresh air into the car feels like his head breaching the surface of the ocean — like he’s stepping back into an entirely different reality when he leaves the car on wobbly legs and helps Dongju out onto the sidewalk.

“You look kind of a mess,” he tells him now that he can see him in the streetlight's light here.

Dongju’s makeup is smudged and his hair sticks up in every direction and his shirt is buttoned wrong.

“Wow, thanks.” Dongju shakes out his hair and takes a step towards the house. “I have some people to say goodbye to, and well, I gotta give Keonhee his keys back and tell him not to come home tonight. Wait for me here?”

The implications of that are clear, Giwook supposes. He waits, like frozen into place.

The rest of the night is spent with Dongju’s cock down Giwook’s throat, jaw pliant and loose as Dongju fucks into his mouth and pulls at his hair. His thighs shake where he has them thrown over Giwook’s shoulders, and he has to press his hand over his mouth to muffle a scream when Giwook slips two fingers back into him. He comes hard into the condom when Giwook crooks them right into his prostate. Giwook sucks him right through it.

“Fuck, Giwook,” he breathes out as Giwook rests his head against the inside of his thigh and finishes himself off.

It’s the first time he’s ever heard Dongju say his name in relation to his orgasm, and he can’t help but look up at him. Find his eyes, glistening with an emotion he can’t decipher right above his flushed cheeks.

And he comes like that, looking at his face, muffles his whimpers against Dongju’s thigh.

A hand is raking through his hair so softly when he comes to again, and he doesn’t even remember if he passed out for a moment, or if he lost time, or if he just doesn’t remember the last few seconds. But Dongju is stroking his hair, fingers massaging his scalp and petting along his ears, and everything is right with the world.

Dongju pulls him up on the bed, even if there’s not much space for both of them. His hand stays in Giwook’s hair and he presses a small kiss to his lips. It feels so much like what Giwook missed last time.

He’s still losing time, apparently, two orgasms and the weed finally getting to him. He notices only when he opens his eyes after what he thought was a blink and finds Dongju frowning at him. His thumbs massage small circles into Giwook’s cheeks and he won’t kiss him until Giwook almost begs him to — “ _Please_ , I promise I’m fine.”

At least this state allows him to lean back as Dongju cleans him up and presses little kisses into the skin of his hips. He floats in and out of consciousness while Dongju is gone to discard the tissues and the condom.

“I would invite you for a sexy shower with me to get properly cleaned up, but unfortunately we only have one shower here, and I think I might get banned from living here if I got caught fucking in there and Keonhee’s car in the same night.” Dongju sits back down on the bed and pulls Giwook towards him. “Also, I think you really need to rest.”

The thought of sexy showers is not so unappealing, but Giwook has to agree on Dongju’s last point.

They sink back into the pillows together, surprisingly soft for the cheap bed, and Dongju keeps petting his hair. Giwook doesn’t complain — he’s never quite figured out Dongju’s obsession with his hair, but he likes it.

“My roommates might return throughout the night,” Dongju tells him, just as he’s about to drift off. “I tried to sexile them for the entire night, but they refused, so I at least got them to promise to give us a massive head start. Don’t be scared of them, though, they’re all very nice and they won’t tell on us.”

Giwook nods, and relishes in the feeling of the head pets he’s still getting, until darkness consumes everything.

He does meet one of Dongju’s roommates the next morning, when he stumbles out of Dongju’s tiny bedroom, almost more like a bed niche, to take a leak and a freakishly tall figure freezes in its step down the hall.

“Oh,” the figure, which of course turns out to be a boy, says, scratching his head. He very much looks like he just got up, too. “So I guess you’re the guy he ruined my car with earlier?”

Heat flushes Giwook’s face way too fast for the early hour, leaves him dizzy. “I guess.”

The guy nods, pushing a messy mop of hair out of his face. “Great. I’m Keonhee, I’m one of his roommates. I really don’t care about anything you guys do, just, give me a heads up next time you do it in my car so I can put some plastic sheets in place or something. He told me you were just going to hotbox it.”

Giwook lets his head drop against the doorframe when Keonhee vanishes behind a door.

Of course Dongju wouldn’t tell the owner of the car they fucked in that they were going to fuck in it, else he probably would have never gotten the keys — but why did Giwook have to be the first to have to face him?

It takes him a moment to find the door to the bathroom once he recovers, and he nearly embarrasses himself even more by walking into one of the other boys’ rooms, but he finds it, and glares at himself in the dirty mirror. His hair is sticking up at the side from where his head was pressed into the pillow, and the rest of it is fluffy and messy from Dongju’s ministrations. The circles under his eyes are nearly darker than his irises, and his cheeks glow red.

Naturally it would take someone like Keonhee less than two seconds to figure out who exactly he is to Dongju.

The residue of alcohol catches up to him when he’s done with his business and tries to comb his hair with his fingers. He figures he could probably use Dongju’s toothbrush, they’ve shared enough bodily fluids for that to be almost the least gross thing they’ve ever done, but he doesn’t want to without asking.

So he scuffles back out of the bathroom with teeth that feel too big in his mouth, and he finds Dongju out in the small kitchen area with what must be one of his other roommates.

Much opposed to Keonhee, this one is almost scarily short, and he claps his hands when he catches sight of Giwook in the hall. A grin takes over his almost impish face, and he turns to Dongju, “Oh, is this him?”

“Well, who else would be in our house.” Dongju doesn’t even blink at the look the guy throws him. “Giwook, this is Hwanwoong, my roommate, and the only reason Keonhee knows what we did in his car. Hwanwoong, this is Giwook, the reason you all had to stay out and the one person you’re not supposed to talk about.”

Hwanwoong raises an eyebrow at Giwook, but his smile doesn’t leave his face. “So I’ve been informed.”

He leaves them alone not long after, but not before looking Giwook up and down so intently it leaves him standing frozen to his spot in the hallway, face growing hot. Eyes on his body have always bothered him a little, he’s never liked the thought of people seeing him and forming an opinion on him, and especially not now.

What do Dongju’s roommates see in the guy he’s been screwing for months and sexiles them for, but that they aren’t allowed to talk about because no one is supposed to know? Do they know about Dongmyeong?

Giwook doesn’t ask any of that, not right now at least. He’s in Dongju’s apartment and the sun is falling in golden through the small kitchen window and Dongju is sitting by the wobbly wooden kitchen table in a ratty old sweatshirt and messy hair and he’s eating rice with the same chopsticks they always used at the Son’s house, the ones he used to use, too, whenever he slept over and their mother made him breakfast, the ones that almost look like home — Giwook has been here before but he’s never been here like this. Not beyond the way too early morning hours.

He’s seen Dongju wake up countless times, but they’ve never stayed for breakfast. Not when they were still at home, because their parents would have asked, not when Dongju came to his apartment, not when he was here.

Mornings make him softer, but Dongju looks like a different person outside of his bed in the morning.

The only times Giwook has ever seen him like this, hunched over the breakfast table with sleep still in his eyes, was when he would have sleepovers with Dongmyeong in middle school, and he didn’t look at Dongju then the way he looks at him now. Like he woke up after he sucked Dongju’s dick in that bathroom and met a whole new person.

Moments of silence pass between them, though, and Giwook’s gut creeps up into his chest.

Finally, Dongju clears his throat. “Do you want anything to eat? Or do you just wanna go home?”

Giwook doesn’t know how to reply to that, really. He should go home as soon as possible, before Dongmyeong notices that he never returned in the first place — he would not let Giwook get away with excuses for that. But he would also like to stay here, in the almost silent tranquility of this morning, and with a Dongju that is so —

He doesn’t even have the words to describe this. The faint bustle of the roommates waking up and moving around in the background, like music playing as a backdrop, Dongju’s hand resting on the table.

The buzz of the weed should have left his brain by now, but the pressure on his chest has not seceded. It’s become worse, actually, it grows with every second he spends looking at Dongju. Like a dull spark at the ends of his nerves, a flame held close to the palm of his hand, pain and danger for the sake of thrill, so close yet so far.

He doesn’t know what any of that means, or why Dongju makes his brain run in circles with everything he does, but he doesn’t know how to make it stop, either, so he just lets the thorns grow into his brain.

“I think I would like some breakfast,” he says quietly, before he can stop himself.

Dongju nods and gets up to get him a bowl.

They sit in silence again when they eat, but it’s not awkward. It’s better than being forced to talk, and Giwook has to think about his unfortunate date with Geonhak. Dongju doesn’t need conversation, doesn’t need to know him.

Not any more than he already does.

Only when Giwook speaks up himself, do they get talking. “I met your other roommate this morning. Keonhee?”

“Oh.” Dongju’s lips bend into a smile around the food stuffed into his mouth. He swallows, then says, “I hope he didn’t give you too much trouble about the car. I talked to him, he’s not actually that mad about it.”

Giwook shakes his head. “Nah, he just said he’d like a heads up next time and that you lied to him about what you were gonna do with it.” He raises an eyebrow, but Dongju only grins broader. “He’s kinda scary, though.”

That makes Dongju splutter, a piece of rice flying out of his mouth. “Scary? Keonhee?”

Giwook ducks his head. “Well, he’s so tall, and he was kind of really serious about the car …”

“Yeah, tall. A tall goofball, perhaps.” Dongju shakes his head and smiles. “If he was serious, he was probably just tired. I did make him stay out until the last possible moment so we’d have some privacy.” He wipes the rice he spit out off the table with a paper towel. “Really, if there’s one person in the world you don’t have to be scared of, it’s Keonhee. Chances that he’s scared of _you_ are higher, he pisses himself at someone setting a plate down too hard.”

From somewhere behind the kitchen wall, a much lighter voice than he heard this morning calls, “I can hear you, you fucking dipshit,” and Dongju actually giggles around his breakfast.

Giwook doesn’t think he will ever tire of looking at him like this.

He braces himself before he even reaches their apartment door.

It’s gotten way too late. He finished his breakfast with Dongju only hesitantly, not really wanting to leave just yet, and Dongju pinned him to the wall next to the door for a scarily long time, kissing him until Keonhee walked by.

There’s no way in hell Dongmyeong hasn’t gotten up and noticed his absence by now.

He types the code into the keypad and waits for the door to unlock, only to immediately, he doesn’t even get to take a step into the apartment and look around, be met with Dongmyeong staring at him from the couch.

He’s sitting with both of his knees pulled up to his chest and cradling a cup of something steaming, either tea or a strong load of coffee, and he hasn’t even changed out of his pyjamas or combed his hair — so yes, there is absolutely no way Giwook is getting out of this one without a proper explanation.

Dongmyeong is never rude about things. He’s not a man of the offense, though that doesn’t mean he would avoid confrontation. Not that, he just likes to do it in his own way. Sly, calculated, with a smile on his face.

He builds up in front of his victims like a sweet flower, and snaps his jaw around them like a snake.

Except this time, he doesn’t greet Giwook, doesn’t stir sugary sweet words into his bloodstream or even lets him so much as take off his shoes by the door before he asks, “Explain yourself?”

Giwook lets his head fall backwards with a sigh. “What’s there to explain, Myeongie?”

Dongmyeong’s lips pucker in the exact same way his brother’s do when he pouts. “Well, you told me two months ago that you aren’t seeing anyone and that you don’t really have time for or interest in hooking up right now, and I didn’t even really believe you then, and now you come back in the morning after obviously hooking up with someone and, considering how long it took you to come back, you either slept really well, or you stayed for breakfast.”

Giwook seals his lips shut tight and prays Dongmyeong can’t see how warm his face gets.

“No one stays for breakfast at their hookup’s place unless it’s serious,” Dongmyeong explains for him as if he needed that. And while Giwook can’t say that he absolutely agrees with that, he’s well aware of how suspicious this is making him look. “So really, Giwookie, _please_ just tell me who it is. I’m so curious.”

The lump that forms in Giwook’s throat is so thick it hinders his speech for a moment. Dongmyeong’s eyes are so curious, too, searching every inch of his face. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable sharing that yet,” he manages to get out, eventually. His voice sounds hoarse even to him. “Because it’s not really that serious. Maybe not yet, maybe it never will be. I don’t know. It’s good the way it is right now, I think.”

When he looks at Dongmyeong again, he hasn’t moved an inch, but he’s blinking at Giwook slowly. Something like understanding blooms on his face, and Giwook feels sick. “That’s okay,” and his voice is so kind.

Giwook nods and tries not to look guilty as he moves into the kitchen. “I’ll let you know once I … know.”

And he isn’t even sure how much of it is a lie, at this point. He isn’t sure of anything anymore.

The studio his department rents out is located just ten minutes off campus, and Giwook gladly takes the crowded bus to reach it if it means he gets to hole himself up in a studio with Youngjo for hours and do nothing except music.

It’s one of the only things he does these days, apart from studying, and he lives and breathes for it.

Most people from his department that he’s met around here are super cool, just as cool as he thought Youngjo was when he first met him, and Youngjo has introduced him to some real legends their school harbors. Just the other day he got to meet Jeon Soyeon, who’s not actually that much older than him but who’s won every competition she’s ever took part in.

Youngjo had to elbow him in the side when he kept staring at her face like, quote, a _lovesick puppy._

Giwook spends days alone in here, no longer having to produce on his lowlife laptop with a program he pirated off some shady website, but with actual professional programs and speakers to play his tracks through in all their glory.

Even Youngjo comes around to complimenting him, after months of trying, and Giwook glows.

Dongju and Dongmyeong both comment on how happy he seems, although Dongmyeong tries to also write it up to things going well with his little love affair, as he calls it, and Giwook tries to smile without throwing up.

The fact that Dongmyeong now knows something is definitely going on, and that by effect brings him a large step closer to knowing what exactly is, and has been, going on, is the only damper to Giwook’s mood these days. But he tries not to let it get to him, even if he sometimes finds his mind wandering while he writes.

He doesn’t mean to write an entire letter into a song, and Youngjo raises his eyebrows at him when he reads over the lyrics, but what’s done is done and Youngjo tells him he doesn’t think they’re bad.

“A bit sad perhaps, and I don’t think I want to know what inspired you to write this, but,” he says, and smiles.

So Giwook records the song himself — he can’t use Dongmyeong for this one, and he hasn’t really been recording songs with him in general since they started going here. He records it and he saves the file into a deeply buried folder on his own, private laptop and swears to never touch it again. It won’t see his SoundCloud page.

Apart from the weird limbo between the Son twins he regrettably finds himself stuck in, though, Giwook would say everything in his life is going fine. He visits his parents on the weekends whenever he can, he still keeps in contact with Geonhak and he thinks he’s even made a friend in him, Dongmyeong has stopped being suspicious of him, and even though his relationship with Dongju confuses him sometimes, it’s still comfortable.

Things are going okay, and maybe he just shouldn’t have thought that.

Because as life will have it, just as he packs up his things that night and makes his way out of the mostly dark building to catch one of the last buses back to his apartment, he’s stopped out in the hall.

He recognizes Han Jisung not only because Youngjo introduced them a while ago but also because he’s a bit of a legend in their department — blonde streak in his hair and rips in his jeans and more stars next to his name than Giwook can care to count — he knows Jisung is good without them.

“Hi,” Jisung says as he steps in front of him. “Giwook, right?” But his tone suggests that he already knows.

“Um, yeah. Hi Jisung.” Giwook loops his thumb through the strap of his bag and smiles, although he’s sure it looks awkward — he didn’t expect Jisung to ever speak to him again after Youngjo introduced them.

It calms his nerves at least a little that Jisung looks just as awkward as him, Giwook would even call the smile that flickers over his face for a moment almost nervous. “You’re one of Youngjo’s, right?” he asks, but he seems to interrupt himself right afterwards. “You know what, why am I even asking that? I meant to ask something else.”

Giwook laughs along with the nervous giggle he lets out, if only to alleviate the pressure.

“Right. I actually meant to say that I — I think you’re really cute and I listened to your music and I think you’re really talented and I wanted to ask if you would, you know, want to go out with me sometime.”

Every word that leaves his mouth knocks the breath out of Giwook’s lungs. He doesn’t want to ask after what he just said, because Jisung already looks like he’s about to pass out as it is, but he’s also not entirely sure he heard right. In all nearly twenty-one years of his life he’s never actually been asked out on a date, he’s not even fully sure if that’s even a thing that happens outside of movies — or he wouldn’t be, had it not just happened to him.

“I,” he starts wisely, and his heart aches when he sees Jisung’s face deflate. He hurries to continue, “I mean, I really hope this isn’t some mean middle school joke, but yes, of course I would.”

And it’s not even a lie — if only for the chance of hanging out with a genius like Han Jisung, Giwook would never say no to an offer like this. Dinner and conversation he knows his way around in; he knows how music works and he knows how musicians talk to each other, he’s done it with Youngjo and all the people he’s been introduced to here. It might be awkward for him, still, to meet someone new, but at least he’d know what they share.

If everything goes to shit with that, he at least knows what he’s talking about when it comes to music.

Jisung’s face lights up with a smile, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I promise this is not a joke. Wait, let me give you my number —” He lets Giwook copy it into his contacts, and he sends him a message straight away. “Oh, this is so exciting.” Jisung’s grin illuminates the whole hallway. “I gotta go, but I’ll text you, all right?”

Giwook nods, dumbfounded, and stays standing in the hall for a moment after Jisung’s already left, still speechless. The last date he went on was a small catastrophe, even if he made a tentative friend out of it, but he has a feeling that this could actually be good — Jisung seems fun, and he’s so cool, and he at least acts like he’s genuinely excited to go out with him. And they have a shared interest.

Just how is he supposed to tell Dongmyeong about this?

He doesn’t, in the end — or at least he doesn’t tell him that it’s someone new. He just gets ready, shrugs on something half decent and does his hair, and when Dongmyeong asks him about it, he tells him he’s going on a date.

Dongmyeong raises his eyebrows, but a smile breaks out on his face a moment later. Of course, he has to be glad that Giwook has stopped hiding the fact that he’s seeing someone, and Giwook only feels half bad about it now. Maybe the fact that he’s actually excited for this is enough of a distraction from the train wreck of lies.

He heads out after checking his outfit in the mirror Dongmyeong put up next to the front door, and his steps bounce as he descends the stairs.

Jisung told him to meet him at this cafe turned restaurant that is not too far off campus and that they can both afford. Giwook has been here before, on one of the rare lunch dates he and Dongmyeong still get to have between classes and study sessions, but the giddy feeling in his gut is new. He used to only get that when he was with —

He cuts himself off before the thought can materialize when he spots Jisung towards the back of the place.

“Hi.” His smile is just as bright as it was that day in the studio, and he has the blonde streak in his hair swept back over his head. Giwook really doesn’t try to sound like a nerd, but he thinks he’s so cool.

Not only is he a great producer, and Giwook has been following his SoundCloud for long enough to know that he is, but he also talks about music the same way Youngjo does despite being Giwook’s age and only a semester ahead of him. He keeps Giwook entertained throughout their entire meal, and he talks with a smile on his face.

The whole experience is so vastly different from the awkward coffee date with Geonhak, it has Giwook floating half an inch above his seat — especially when Jisung shows genuine interest in the projects he’s been working on.

Conversation flows so easily between them like that, even though when Giwook first sits down he notices that Jisung sports the same nervous smile he did at the studio, the flicker of his eye, twitch of his fingers. It eases up the longer they talk, and Giwook, too, has never felt this comfortable talking to someone he’s only just met.

Because this is his element, music, and Jisung is moving on the same wavelength. He listens to Giwook vent about school and studying with a sparkle in his eyes and lets him ramble about all the things he wants to achieve one day, when he’s out of here, without interrupting him once, and Giwook does the same for him. Jisung wants to be on stage one day, not just behind the scenes — and Giwook can see the appeal, even if it’s a far dream for him.

“Why?” Jisung asks when he says that, and a frown climbs his forehead. “You’re so talented.”

Giwook’s face grows warm, and he tries to suppress a smile. “Well, I’m not really a singer. Not like you, at least. I can rap a little because sometimes I have to for my songs, but that’s about it.”

“But you can play instruments,” Jisung objects. “You don’t have to sing to be on stage.”

“Well, I guess that’s right.” Giwook clears his throat and sticks another piece of meat into his mouth to get out of talking for a moment. “I don’t know,” he says when he’s swallowed. “I’m not sure if it is for me.”

Jisung shrugs and his smile returns with its prior intensity. “Of course, you don’t have to. I just don’t want you to think it’s completely out of the picture for you, because I can definitely see you up there.” He doesn’t add a _with me_ , and Giwook doesn’t want to imagine that he heard it be implied.

The only thing he can offer Jisung at that is a shy smile, and they change the topic.

Jisung talks about home and his family, living in Malaysia for a portion of his life to go to school there, and Giwook finds that he enjoys listening to him even when they aren’t talking about music. He enjoys talking to him, too. Because in turn, he tells stories about growing up in downtown Suwon and never really having left his hometown, but how he’s almost glad for it because this way, he didn’t lose his best friend. Jisung, almost similarly to Harin that night at Giwook’s first party here, expresses his sorrow about never having a friend like what Dongmyeong is to Giwook.

They finish their lunch and even the coffees they order afterwards without ever stumbling upon a lull in conversation, and Giwook leaves with a pocket full of napkins and a red face and still itching to talk to Jisung more.

He texts him right on the bus home, to thank him for the delightful time, and they end up in another conversation until Giwook has to, regrettably, put it on hold to get off the bus.

His steps carry him up the stairs even bouncier than they carried him down, and he feels like he’s floating. It’s the first real friend he’s made since he got here, not counting his tentative attempts at friendly text conversations with Geonhak that still occasionally fizzle out into awkwardness, and he’s never felt this elated.

The only potential downside to this is that he’s not entirely sure about the dating part.

Not allowing himself to worry about that just yet — surely a time would come, after they’ve gone out a few more times, when Jisung would ask him if he would consider turning a little more serious, and then he could worry about whether he’s ready or willing to — he pushes open the door to the apartment.

He only gets to take a few steps into the living room before Dongmyeong looks up from where he’s wiping down the couch table, and catches the look on his face with a grin. “Oh, someone had fun.”

Giwook doesn’t even try to deny it, but he doesn’t want to talk about it in too much depth either. Instead, he lets his eyes fall to the cardboard takeout boxes Dongmyeong is picking up from around the living room, the blanket still spread out over the couch and the laptop perched on the table. “You had company, too, I take it?”

“Just Dongju,” Dongmyeong waves him off. “So I guess everything’s going fine with your lover boy?”

He’s stubborn about not letting go of this, just like he’s stubborn about everything, but Giwook can be stubborn right back. “Yes, everything’s going peachy so far.” He leans back against the kitchen counter and watches as Dongmyeong folds the blanket. “Dongju doesn’t normally come over to hang out during the week, right? Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he just had the day off today,” Dongmyeong says, and he seems to have given up on the topic of Giwook’s date because the next thing he adds his, “He asked about you, too, actually, now that I think about it.”

Giwook feels the muscles in his back tense up. “Oh, did he?”

“Yes, he wanted to know where you were.” Dongmyeong shakes his head and drops down on the couch, pulling one of his textbooks into his lap. “Have you guys been hanging out without me or something? I feel left out.”

And everything Giwook has been suppressing under the excitement for his upcoming date flooded back up into his throat like bile. Guilt and regret about lying to Dongmyeong, shame about keeping something this important from him for so long, The obligation he has to Dongju to not spill without talking to him first. All of the things they’ve done, the sneaking around and the lying, wrapped up in a neat package and sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach.

He would throw it all up onto their living room floor if he could.

But instead he just shakes his head. “Not really. I don’t know why he would be asking about me, I was just worried something might have been up with him because he came here today. He’s my friend, too.”

“I know that.” Dongmyeong throws him a weird look. “Are _you_ okay? You look kind of sick.”

“Yeah, I’ve been feeling a bit off the whole day, but I didn’t want to let it ruin my date,” he lies through his teeth. “Guess it’s coming to bite me in the ass now. I should probably go lie down.”

“Yeah. Probably.” Something is still odd about Dongmyeong’s expression when Giwook leaves him alone in the living room. Just as he’s about to close his door behind him, Dongmyeong calls after him, “I already had takeout with Ju earlier, so I might actually attempt to cook something later tonight. You want anything?”

“Sure,” Giwook calls back. He closes his door and lets his head drop forward against it.

There are still messages waiting to be answered on his phone, heavy in his pocket now, but when he pulls it out, the one sitting on top of all of them is not from Jisung.

_Dongju [3:03pm]: I hope you had fun on your date! :)_

Giwook arrives at Dongju’s apartment a full forty minutes before he’s supposed to, and Keonhee lets him in.

“Dongju is still in class,” he informs him when he opens the door for him, but he lets him inside, anyway. “Probably will be for at least like, another thirty minutes? Maybe twenty. Did he tell you to be here this early?”

Giwook shakes his head. “No, but I was already on my way.”

Keonhee levels him with a look that Giwook can’t quite decipher, and he still has yet to find the puppy-like baby that Dongju claims to see in this man. To him, he looks more like a gangly noodle of a man with far too sharp eyes and a mouth hanging open just enough to reveal a row of ridiculously large teeth. He’s definitely not as intimidating as Giwook thought at first glance, but he has to find what makes Dongju think of him as so cute.

“Look,” Keonhee starts, leaning his hip against the backrest of the couch opposite of the one Giwook just sat down on, “I don’t wanna sow bad seed before Dongju’s even back, but I think he’s kind of mad at you, so. Prepare.”

Giwook blinks up at him. “He’s mad at me? For what?”

Keonhee raises his hands in defense. “I can’t say that he’s really mad, but he’s definitely been in kind of a bad mood, and I at least think it’s because of you. If I were you, I would just be ready for anything to happen.”

Someone Giwook has never seen here stumbles out of a door he’s never seen open, and he blinks at Giwook like he is questioning his sight for a moment, before he gets around to introducing himself. Hyungu, the fourth inhabitant of this place, and also the friend that Harin mentioned at the party. Giwook is surprised he remembers that.

His face lights up in recognition when Giwook mentions Harin’s name. “Oh, I think he’s mentioned —” he cuts himself off to start a new question, “Are you Dongju’s twin’s roommate, then?”

In his peripheral, he sees Keonhee’s mouth fall open, but he clears his throat and nods.

Hyungu seems satisfied with that, tells him that Harin mentioned their encounter to him, and he doesn’t stick around for much longer. Right as he disappears into the bathroom, Giwook’s field of vision is taken over by Keonhee.

“Please don’t tell me that the reason you and Dongju are being so secretive about your … whatever it is you’re doing! Your arrangement, because his brother doesn’t know about it and you live with him.” He seems weirdly upset.

Giwook averts his eyes, let his gaze seek refuge in his hands. “His brother is my best friend,” is all he can say.

“Oh my god.” Keonhee’s head drops backwards, and he lets out a long groan.

Giwook’s face runs far too hot, and he doesn’t know where to look anymore. “Why does that bother you so much?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe just because I know how close Dongju is to Dongmyeong and you claim to be his best friend and you live with him. Which puts you both in very close relation to him, and makes sneaking around behind his back virtually impossible in the long run, at least in my eyes.” He shakes his head, but doesn’t seem to be able to hold back a smile. “I mean, do whatever you want, but don’t be surprised if it goes up in flames.”

Dongmyeong’s face in the living room a few days ago, a text on his phone, Jisung in the cafe. Strange questions and even stranger looks, and Giwook knows that it won’t be long until Dongmyeong gets too suspicious. He already suspected that they’ve been hanging out without him — how much longer until he finds out what they’ve been doing?

“We dealt with Dongju being sulky for like three days, and it was hell. He bites even more when he’s mad. Please don’t subject us to him being actually heartbroken because he has to have a fight with his brother because of you.”

“You make it sound like I’m forcing this on him,” Giwook mutters towards his hands. “He’s in this just as much.”

In fact, Dongju is kind of the one who started it all — not that Giwook didn’t feel the tension and didn’t go along with it without a single complaint, but Dongju moved in first. Dongju lingered by the bathroom door instead of locking it behind him, Dongju brushed against him with so much intention, Dongju pinned him to the sink.

Dongju called him a week later, to ask if he could ever imagine a repeat of that night.

This is not solely Giwook’s fault, and he refuses to let it be painted out to be. Dongju is his own person, and he is an adult and should know better than to start things he’s not prepared to face the consequences of.

Even if Giwook himself feels sick at the thought of the consequences. These are his actions, too.

Keonhee stares at him through those weirdly open eyes, the hollow wisdom behind them, like Giwook’s thoughts echo off the walls of his head. He says nothing else, and he doesn’t have to. He pulls on his shoes by the door and calls for Hyungu to hurry up, lets Giwook know that Hwanwoong is out with a friend and will be for a while.

He smiles at him, then, and maybe Giwook can see what Dongju means, after all.

Keonhee and Hyungu leave the apartment arm in arm, and they promise to not be back too soon.

Ten minutes of Giwook awkwardly sitting on the couch and staring at the wall of this empty apartment that isn’t his later, Dongju returns from class.

The code beeps at the door, and Giwook nearly flinches out of his seat. Dongju steps in, shrugs off his jacket and runs a hand through his hair. He takes a step into the apartment and freezes in his tracks.

“What the hell are you doing here?” His tone is neutral, but his eyes are wide.

“I was already on the run and didn’t want to go home for like, ten minutes only to leave again. Keonhee let me in.”

Dongju blinks at him slowly and slinks deeper into the apartment. “Well, okay.” Giwook watches as he passes the couch and heads for the kitchen. He sounds apathetic when he says, “I wasn’t expecting you to be here already, though, so I’m not like, ready to go. I’m gonna eat something and you can wait here, I guess. I’ll be good to go in ten.”

Giwook stares after him. “Wow, someone’s enthusiastic today. We don’t have to fuck if you don’t want to.”

The laugh that echoes through the hall is almost bitter. “What else do you wanna do? Hold hands and pick flowers?” He snorts. “You’re here for what you’re here for. Don’t pretend this is about anything else now.”

Keonhee was right. Giwook closes his eyes. Dongju is definitely mad about something, and Giwook almost has an idea what it could be — though assuming that Dongju would be mad about that comes with a lot of other assumptions in a direction that Giwook is not entirely sure he’s willing to head into.

He sits patiently on the couch, legs folded under his thighs, and waits for Dongju to finish eating. He could follow him into the kitchen, at least talk to him while he eats, but he’s mildly afraid of getting his neck snapped.

When Dongju returns from the kitchen, his expression is still sour, but he’s already taking off his sweater jacket.

His hands dig hard into the fabric of Giwook’s hoodie when he hesitates a second too long — not entirely sure if _he_ wants to fuck with Dongju in this kind of mood — and pull him up by it. All doubts melt away when Dongju’s lips crash onto his, licking and biting into his mouth, obviously angry. Giwook isn’t complaining.

It’s actually kind of hot, the way Dongju pushes against his shoulders, pins him down against his bed — Giwook has barely any recollection of how they got here from the living room. Tangled limbs and Dongju’s hands in his hair.

His head is swimming, he sees stars with the way Dongju kisses him. It’s wild and messy, untamed. Everything that Dongju is feeling, all of the anger he made clear, poured into a series of kisses that drive Giwook insane.

He moves on down his neck, and it has Giwook bucking his hips into the air desperately, searching for something.

“Now look at who’s being enthusiastic,” Dongju mutters, and he doesn’t sound like he’s having fun. He sucks the skin of Giwook’s neck into his mouth and winds his fingers into his hair — pulling instead of petting.

Giwook floats at least half a foot above the bed, eyes closed and keening after Dongju’s lips on his body.

Teeth dig into his skin too hard while Dongju kisses down his chest, and the harsh pain startles Giwook back into reality. He recoils — his leg draws up to push Dongju away while his arms cover his chest, exposed as it lies in the cold air of the room. Dongju pulls away immediately when his eyes catch on Giwook’s face.

“I’m sorry —” he tries to start, but Giwook cuts him off,

“Why are you so mad? What did I do?”

He thinks he knows where this is going, but he can’t say it. Not with the way Dongju is staring at him, spots of light reflecting in his eyes, looking like tears. Lips pressed into a hard line under the red tip of his nose.

Dongju’s nose turns red when he cries, which Giwook only knows that because Dongmyeong’s does, too.

“I’m not mad,” he says, and it sounds painfully breakable in comparison to everything else he’s said today. His voice doesn’t shake, but it doesn’t carry the harshness of his earlier words, doesn’t hit as deep. “You did nothing.”

Giwook swallows around the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to say it — if only for fear of the humiliation if he’s wrong and Dongju thinks he’s weird for even assuming something like that — but it seems to be the only way to get it out of him. His voice does shake when he starts, “If this is about Jisung —”

“It’s not,” Dongju says, but it’s too quickly. “No, that’s not it, please, not at all, why would you —”

“Ju,” Giwook tries gently. “You don’t have to lie to me about it, we should talk about it if something’s bothering you. It’s absolutely fine if there is something making you upset, you just have to tell me —”

The fire that blazes in Dongju’s eyes is so hot Giwook feels his tongue burn on his own words. This is the trap he did not want to end up in, the part where Dongju glares at him and everything he says will only stoke the flames. Like walking over a crack in a dam, he knows he has to tread carefully. One wrong step and the water will spill like poison.

“There’s not.” Dongju clamps his lips down into a hard line again. “And especially not you going out with Han Jisung, that’s just ridiculous. Don’t be so full of yourself. We’re not exclusive after all.”

“Right,” Giwook concedes slowly. “We’re not. Which is why I went out with him.”

“Right.” Spots of light still swirl around Dongju’s eyes, and his lips hardly move as he speaks. “We’re not exclusive and we never were. So you can do whatever you want, and I won’t care. I can do whatever I want. Right?”

“Right,” Giwook confirms, even if the word is slowly losing its meaning in his head. “So you’re not mad.”

“I’m not mad.” Dongju’s eyes close, and when he opens them again, the light is gone. “Do whatever you want.”

Giwook doesn’t believe him, not in the slightest, but he knows it would be pointless to pressure him more — if he has learned anything out of listening to Dongmyeong ranting about his brother for the past ten years, it’s that trying to poke only provokes more anger. Dongju would reveal his secrets on his own time, or not at all.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, and Giwook pulls his hoodie back over his head. Dongju shivers in his t-shirt, but he doesn’t get up to get something warmer to wear.

His voice is near a whisper, almost fragile when he asks, “Can you leave?”

“Of course,” Giwook whispers back. He slides to the edge of the bed, and squeezes Dongju’s shoulder before he gets up. By the door, he turns around again. “Get some sleep, Ju. You look tired.”

The bedding rustles when Giwook leaves through the front door, and he closes his eyes on the way out.

_Giwook [5:15pm]: Hey, I’m really sorry that I have to let you know this way and that I didn’t tell you earlier, but I suppose you are interested in actually dating me, and I’m kind of already kind of in an arrangement with someone else, and the whole thing is turning out to be more complicated than I anticipated. I’m really sorry, but I think it would be best if we cancelled our date on Friday before I cause any more harm to either you or the other person._

_Giwook [5:28pm]: This made it sound like I was cheating on someone with you, I promise me and the other person were never serious or exclusive, it’s just complicated right now and I would rather sort things out first. Sorry._

Dongju doesn’t call again. Their chat on Giwook’s phone stays silent.

Jisung texts him back hours after he sends the text, to tell him that it’s absolutely fine and that he’s sorry if he caused any trouble. Giwook wants to assure him that he didn’t, that it was never his fault, but he doesn’t.

He puts his phone down and actually turns back to his textbook for once. With everything going on, the conflicting things he felt the last time he and Dongju were together before Jisung happened, Jisung, his projects in the studio, and Dongmyeong being suspicious of him, Giwook has almost lost track of his classes.

School, though, is the only adequate distraction from the lack of texts on his phone he can find.

Not that he and Dongju would talk all the time before — in fact they hardly ever talked over text at all, Giwook realizes when it’s three in the morning and he’s scrolling back up their chat history — but it’s still different. Their hookups definitely decreased in frequency since they moved away from home, but it was never like this.

He would still see Dongju at least once every other week, or he would come over to visit Dongmyeong and they would send each other awkward glances across the room. Not complete radio silence.

At least it gives Giwook time to focus on his work. He still heads downtown for his job on the weekends, and drops by his parents’ house on his way back and waves at the Sons when he sees them in the hallway. He sits by the window of his childhood bedroom, stripped bare now, and stares at the landing of the fire escape.

His fingers trace along the chipped edge of his window frame, mark of Dongju climbing in one too many times.

He wishes he could at least tell Dongmyeong, he thinks on the bus home, notes open in his lap to at least pretend he’s studying while he scrolls through old messages he and Dongju exchanged again. Mostly booty calls, single word messages and times, Giwook sending in Dongmyeong’s schedule and analysing when exactly he will be out and Dongju replying that he has work in the afternoon but that he could probably come over for an hour.

Giwook closes his eyes and lets his head drop against the window, clicking sound of his phone as he shuts it off.

Of course, he and Dongju were never anything but that. Someone to call when they were desperate enough for it, someone to spend their teenage experiences with. Their connection just so allowed it to happen.

If Giwook could go back to that first night in the bathroom — he’s not sure if he would stop himself.

Maybe he would, would tell his younger self that it was not worth it risking so much confusion and so much lying for a few good fucks, that it wouldn’t be worth it to put all his other relationships on the line for some sex.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he would warn himself to end things after one time, or maybe not.

Somewhere up in the chat he finds a Facebook link, an invitation to a Halloween party. Dongju sent it with an emoji attached, _Since our last few parties ended so well._ Giwook’s face grows warm even now.

Halloween is only a few weeks away, and Giwook has been to the house of the host before to smoke weed with Dongmyeong and some guys from his anatomy class. Harin was there, too, though he didn’t smoke and drove them back home. The house is big enough for one to be able to enjoy oneself while still avoiding someone.

Not that he’s thinking of avoiding anyone, he reminds himself as he thumbs over the small picture of Dongju’s face he has set as his profile picture. He’s cradling his dog close to his face and grinning at the camera.

It used to be one of the best pictures Giwook had ever saved to his phone. Now it almost hurts to look at.

He sucks in a deep breath and gets off a stop early to walk the rest of the way home.

“Did something happen with lover boy?” Dongmyeong is leaning in the doorway when Giwook looks up. His hair is still wet from the shower, swept back over his head, and his eyes are set hard on Giwook’s face.

His words may be sympathetic, suggest that he cares about why exactly Giwook has been holing up even more, but his face isn’t. His face suggests that he knows more than he is supposed to, and he’s not pleased about it.

Giwook sighs. “You could say so.” But he doesn’t elaborate.

“You’re not going out on many dates anymore, are you?” Dongmyeong prods. His eyebrow climbs up his forehead. “You know, I met Youngjo the other day. Talked to him a little, he’s very impressed by what you’ve done so far, by the way. He also told me that you went out with Han Jisung that day when you went out with your little lover boy. And that he was surprised, because you two have actually not known each other for that long.”

Of course things would go like this, loosening thread by thread. Giwook’s heart contracts, his lungs grow heavy.

“So tell me, Giwook. Is Han Jisung the lover boy you’ve had since, like, the beginning of the year?”

“He’s not,” Giwook breathes out, because what point is there in lying anymore? Dongmyeong knows.

“Of course not.” Dongmyeong sounds strained now, like he’s holding himself back. Giwook still doesn’t want to look at him. “Who is it, then? Or rather, forget that. Why did you lie to me?”

“I don’t know,” Giwook whispers, even if he does. “Things are really messy right now, Myeong.”

“So messy that you have to lie to me about them?” Giwook looks at him just in time to see him shaking his head. This isn’t even his mad face, which makes things even worse. “I don’t care what you do, how many people you date or how strange they are or if you don’t want to talk to me about it. Just don’t lie to me.”

“I’m sorry.” But his mind is so far away. The sound of rustling sheets echoes in his ears, words that he knows aren’t true, his heartbeat in his throat. The text he sent later that night.

“You’re not,” Dongmyeong takes him back. “You’re not even listening to me.”

He’s right about that, too, but Giwook doesn’t know what to do about that. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

Dongmyeong shakes his head again, and it stings in Giwook’s chest, just like everything does. “Get it together, Lee Giwook. Things are not half as bad as you are making them out to be in your head.”

Except that things are even worse than Giwook made them out to be in his head.

He wakes up the morning of Halloween to Dongmyeong flopping down on his bed, obviously in a much better mood than he was days before, grinning up at him and announcing they would be attending that Halloween party.

Which means that Giwook has to dress up, which in turn only means that Dongmyeong gets to have a field day.

Giwook’s own closet is mostly empty, bare except for the handful of sweatshirts he rotates between every day and three pairs of jeans, but unfortunately for him and very fortunately for Dongmyeong, they are not that different in size, and Dongmyeong likes to buy his things big, anyway, for the inch or two Giwook might have on him. He shakes his head at the sight of his closet, and swiftly pulls Giwook into his room, where his own outfit is already set out on the bed.

“What are you gonna be, a sexy … Victorian man?” Giwook squints at the pieces of shimmery fabric.

“Kind of, more like a vampire, but make it me, and even sexier than you’re imagining.” Dongmyeong throws him a wink before he opens the doors to his much more extensive closet, brought straight from back home.

There’s not much they can do without an actual costume like Dongmyeong’s own, but Giwook finds himself buttoned into a lofty white shirt and before he can protest, Dongmyeong ties a small black leather corset around his waist that Giwook doesn’t think he wants to know the original purpose of.

Unfortunately, though, Dongmyeong lets him know that, “This might be Dongju’s. I think he wore it for his rendition of some villain for Halloween once and I stole it for sexy purposes, but I really don’t remember.”

He laughs a little bit as he says it, which is at least relieving because it means he doesn’t notice Giwook freezing.

It’s one thing to suddenly not be talking to someone he’s grown up with since he was ten and who he has recently gotten a lot closer to than ever imagined, but it’s an entirely different thing to be wearing said person’s clothes all of the sudden. Especially when it’s not normal clothes, but a corset obviously meant to accentuate his hips.

The thought of Dongju ever wearing this drives him a little insane already, and he can’t believe he doesn’t remember. They spent every Halloween together, of course, but he has no recollection of the mentioned costume.

Dongmyeong lets him walk around the apartment in his outfit for a little while to get him used to the feeling of the corset squeezing at his middle a little before he’s allowed to take it off for the time being.

The rest of the day is spent in preparation also — well, on Dongmyeong’s part. Giwook actually tries to study the notes he needs for the exam he has to take next week, while trying to black out the noise of Dongmyeong bumbling about the apartment as he tries to gather all the things he will need for the night.

By the time it’s afternoon and Dongmyeong has returned from his second run to the store of the day, Giwook gives up on trying to memorize any more notes and makes food for both of them.

In the late afternoon he lets himself be subjected to Dongmyeong tying him back into his costume, and his pens and brushes digging into Giwook’s cheeks almost harshly as he gets him ready for the party. He rims his eyes with a dark pen and tints his lips red with something that really almost feels like ink, and Giwook doesn’t complain. They are going to be late by the time Dongmyeong has dabbed enough glitter on his own cheeks, but they always are.

Harin comes to pick them up — Giwook wants to squint at the way it’s the third time Harin has played the driver with Dongmyeong involved, now, and the way they hug a moment too long, but he doesn’t.

He knows all too well he’s been keeping secrets from Dongmyeong, too — it’s like a taste of his own medicine.

They get into the car and Harin throws him a smiling compliment about his costume, and Giwook tries really hard to not tell him that Dongmyeong threw it together on a whim. He doesn’t succeed, but Harin only laughs.

The house sits almost peacefully in a neighborhood of similar houses on a normal day, a garden well kept by some of the guys that live here — to get their minds off studying for a couple hours a week, they told him when they were smoking together on the perfectly cut grass — and a porch with comfy furniture.

Which was obviously put aside for the night, and Giwook almost winces at the puke already clinging to one of the bushes. The air is thick with weed smoke and the music turned up so loud it reverberates in Giwook’s core.

The decorations are nice, at least, and Giwook feels bad for whoever must have spent hours artfully draping fake spiderwebs over the windows and the outer walls, and install the big skeleton hanging out of one of the upper story windows, because all of it will undoubtedly be ruined by the end of the night. All efforts in vain.

Dongmyeong, for lack of artistic appreciation, drags him towards the house by his arm.

There are too many people inside, by far, faces covered by extensive masks or too much makeup, and between the flashes of color Giwook has a hard time keeping track of Dongmyeong or making out familiar faces.

He thinks he sees Geonhak in a cheap devil costume by the makeshift bar in the kitchen, but Dongmyeong tugs him away and back into the crowd in the living room before he can investigate. They have drinks now, though. Disgusting jungle juice that Giwook isn’t sure isn’t mainly made of toilet water — he drinks all of it, anyway.

Any way is a way to get through the night, he guesses when he gets another cup. At least there’s vodka in this.

Dongmyeong hangs off his arm for an impressively long time, and Giwook is aware of a sober Harin trailing behind them somewhere. Maybe whatever he observed between them is more serious than presumed. In any other situation, Dongmyeong would have long been off to filter out and talk to his catch of the night, but now he seems adamant about staying by Giwook’s side and not losing Harin from their general vicinity.

“You wanna dance?” he yells into his ear, but Giwook doesn’t have time to answer before he pulls him along.

Of course, dancing with Dongmyeong is never really just dancing, and there is always something new to it. Tonight it’s Harin’s presence, and the fact that Giwook is left to feel like a major third wheel only a couple minutes in.

He spends his time awkwardly wiggling around for what he deems polite enough, before he excuses himself — not like Dongmyeong is paying him any attention when he seems to be barely able to take his eyes off Harin’s face. He doesn’t even look up when Giwook slinks away and pushes through the crowd back to the kitchen.

“Giwook!” It is Geonhak in the cheap devil costume, and he has a hand clamped over his shoulder now. “I didn’t think you’d be here tonight! Wow, you look fantastic.”

“Thanks.” Giwook scratches the back of his neck. “I wasn’t planning to, so this is kind of a last-minute costume.”

“I really couldn’t tell,” Geonhak lets him know, but there is a smile tugging at his lips that lets Giwook’s heart grow a little lighter, at least. “By the way, have you met my friend —”

The face that appears behind Geonhak’s shoulder almost knocks the breath out of Giwook’s lungs. “Jisung!”

Jisung grins, cheeks pushing up into his eyes. And only now does Giwook realize how long it’s been since they saw each other — their cancelled date would have been nearly three weeks ago, now.

“Since when are you two friends?” he asks into the hug he’s wrapped into by Jisung’s arms, even if he doesn’t remember moving to hug him back. It’s warm, though. “You met through the ‘got dumped by Lee Giwook’ club?”

“I mean, if there was anything like that, I’d definitely sign up.” Jisung releases him, and it feels like being catapulted out of the ocean, a little. “So far you’ve been dumping some pretty interesting people. But no, I actually know Geonhak from class. We were quite surprised to find out we both went on exactly one date with you.”

Giwook wants to laugh and return something quick-tongued, see the way Jisung’s eyes sparked in that particular way. He always liked that the most about him, the almost challenging quirk of his face.

He wants to catch up with Geonhak, ask him how he’s been doing because they haven’t kept in touch as much recently, which was mostly on Giwook and his sulking around. But he’s curious, he wants to know. Geonhak has always been nothing but exceptionally nice to him, and Giwook would feel like a right asshole not returning the sentiment. He wants to put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze him like an old friend, joke around some more.

And he wants to wrap an arm around the thin frame of Jisung’s shoulders and shake him a little, make him laugh the way he did at the cafe, have some more comfortable conversation about things he knows his way around.

This would be the perfect opportunity to rekindle two of the relationships, friendships, that he messed up. Now when he’s not too shy to do so, the vodka in his bloodstream surely aiding that.

But he doesn’t end up saying anything, because the second his eyes lift up over Jisung’s shoulder for a moment, his heart drops into the pit of his stomach and he nearly lets go of his cup. His wrist gives out enough for some of the jungle juice to slosh over the side, spilling over his thighs and maybe even onto Jisung’s shoes, judging from the noise he makes. Dongmyeong’s pants stick to his legs, but he doesn’t even have the mind for that.

“Sorry,” he mumbles towards Jisung, but he can’t look at him.

“Are you okay?” Jisung asks instead of saying anything about his ruined shoes.

Giwook doesn’t think he is, but he doesn’t know how to voice it, either. Because in front of his eyes, only maybe five meters into the crowd, Dongju is wrapped around the neck of some taller man, tongue down his throat.

And even like this, the first coherent thought that reaches his brain is how good Dongju’s costume must look. The red of the shirt he’s wearing compliments his skin color so nicely, and his hair is just the right degree of curly that Giwook loves to run his hands through, and from this angle of his face, he can see the red paint on his face.

The second thought to reach him is the urge to spill his drink again. Over the head of the guy Dongju is kissing.

It’s fire setting off in the pit of his stomach, right where his heart dropped earlier. It burns like acid, numbs like bleach poured straight down his throat. He can’t feel his fingers, and his vision turns white for a moment.

He’s never felt like this before, and he doesn’t really know how to categorize this. Or maybe he’s lying to himself, because this feeling reminds him oddly of the time in middle school Dongmyeong made friends with that weird kid Giwook doesn’t even remember the name of anymore and hung out with him all the time instead of Giwook. Or in kindergarten, when his old best friend got a shiny new toy that he really wanted and refused to share. Or at high school prom when some other dude took out the girl he liked, and he felt like puking behind the gym the whole night.

He just doesn’t want to acknowledge that this is the exact feeling. The burning acid settled deep in his guts, running through his veins and lighting him on fire on the inside. Because that would mean something else.

The fog over his vision, blinding white like the poison in his blood, clears up just in time for him to see Dongju pull away from the kiss and turn to look at him — like he’s known he’s here the entire time. The flames burn even brighter at that, and Giwook wants to run. Hide from the pain. Dongju’s eyes sparkle in the colorful lights.

There is a moment when only red light catches in the darkness of his eyes, and Giwook wants to cry. He looks like the devil in person, and his face doesn’t budge even a centimeter under Giwook’s gaze.

It hurts infinitely worse when Dongju turns back to the man he’s with and smiles so brightly.

Giwook sets his cup down on a table to his side, gives Jisung and Geonhak a tight smile, and leaves.

Fall has turned the weather cold, and Giwook freezes to near death out on the steps of the porch. He should have brought a jacket, maybe, it’s almost November, or maybe it already is, after all. He hasn’t checked the time. But it would have ruined his outfit, and it would have been too much of a hassle to find it in the heaps by the door.

So he sits out in the cold with nothing but the thin shirt Dongmyeong put him into, and he waits because he can’t just leave without him. He texted him, but it would take a while for him to even check his phone, probably.

Harin is there to make sure Dongmyeong gets home safely, he supposes, he might even be doing a better job at it than Giwook currently, and usually, is, and he could probably hitch a ride with someone else. But he doesn’t really _want_ to leave without Dongmyeong. He doesn’t want to be alone right now, but there’s nothing he can do about that.

He waits. He accepts a cigarette someone hands him even if he’s not normally a fan of nicotine, not even at parties, but he smokes it just to have something to do while he waits. Some people pass around a bowl on the porch and Giwook doesn’t say no when they offer him a hit. A girl with blonde streaks in her hair and a kind smile gets him a drink, and he takes it from her while trying to give her a smile just as nice. He asks for her name, Wheein, and she sits with him for a while. Talks to him about everything and nothing. She put up the skeleton, he finds out.

“Who are you waiting for?” she asks after a while, breaching into the topic for the first time.

“My friend,” he tells her flatly. “He’s still dancing inside so it might take a while, but our other friend’s got a car here and is sober, so I’m hoping they’ll be here soon to take me home.”

“You’re leaving already?” One of Wheein’s eyebrows travels up her forehead. “The party hasn’t even started.”

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugs, even if his face grows warm. He hopes she can’t see in the dim light reaching the porch. “Something kind of ruined my night and I really want to go to bed.” He only realizes it’s true when he says it.

Wheein seems to consider it for a moment, before she claps him on the back a few times and leaves. Whatever bad vibes he’s exuding are too much, even for the stoned host of the party. He sighs.

A few more minutes pass, maybe an hour or two in the weird headspace Giwook finds himself floating in — vodka and nicotine and the two hits of weed he took mixing in his brain and taking him to where he doesn’t want to be. In his own head, trapped between his thoughts, banging on the walls to let him out, let him breathe.

The group behind him finishes their second bowl and heads back inside. Dongmyeong hasn’t seen his texts.

The door creaks when it opens, but Giwook doesn’t turn around for it anymore. Not until the steps slow down behind him instead of passing him to hop down the stairs.

He turns around to find his eyes filled with red; dark red of a blouse against golden skin and a wave of dark curls over a pair of dark eyes that he knows all too well. That is staring at him with no mercy, or kindness.

“Giwook,” Dongju says, but there is no emotion behind it.

“Dongju.” Giwook clears his throat to hide his face behind his hand, at least for a moment. Escape the awkwardness by running the back of his hand along his nose. “I saw you! Just now. In there,” he stutters. “I was going to say hi, but it’s so hot in there I had to get out for a moment. I had a lot of their jungle juice.”

“Your pants had a lot of it, too,” Dongju notes. His voice is still cold.

Giwook looks down at the way Dongmyeong’s pants are still glued to his thighs, now growing sticky with the sugar. “Well, yeah, it seems that way. My hand must have given out, alcohol makes me clumsy.”

“Lies and lies and lies,” Dongju says calmly, but every word hits like a pinprick into Giwook’s skin. His eyes are like daggers of Giwook’s face, sharp and icy cold. “Why do you just keep on lying? Not only to me, I mean.”

This feels so unreal — so little like what Dongju would normally say — that Giwook has half the mind to question whether or not he is hallucinating this. Whatever was in that weed they let him smoke some of? But Dongju is very much real, very much tangible in the cold air, and every word he speaks digs deeper into Giwook’s guts.

There is Dongmyeong’s careful face in every corner of their apartment — _I feel like you never tell me things anymore_ — and there is his betrayed face in the doorframe to his bedroom — _Why did you lie to me?_ — and there is Dongju sinking in on his own frame in the weird stillness of his apartment, where time always seemed to be frozen but where everything came rushing at Giwook at once. Just like it does now.

But Giwook was not the one who lied that night. “Feels wrong for you to accuse me when you do just the same.”

Time doesn’t stand still, even if it feels that way. It never does. It doesn’t wait for you to finish your thought, or whatever you were doing, so you can return to your normal life and no one would ever know you were gone.

Giwook was foolish to ever think that he could keep _this_ — Dongju and his pretty face and the way his nose turns red even now and whatever they were doing in the quiet of the night — separate from his regular life. From Dongmyeong, who’s always known too much about both of them. That he could remove an entire section of his life, something he spends so much time with, from his heart and move on like it isn’t happening.

That he would be strong enough to separate adolescent sex drive from genuine feelings for someone he’s so close to.

Dongju stares at him with his arms crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his shirt billowing in the gust of wind that catches on them. His face is pulled so tight it almost looks like a grimace.

“I was just doing what we agreed would be okay,” it sounds light enough to be carried away by the breeze.

Did they agree? They said _right_ a lot, until the word didn’t mean anything in Giwook’s head anymore, and he left with a heavy heart and stinging eyes when Dongju asked him to, but he isn’t sure they agreed. He texted Jisung afterwards and called off their date, because he wasn’t sure if they really agreed on that, if Dongju would be okay.

He is sure now — Dongju has made it abundantly clear that he’s more than fine with not being exclusive. Giwook hasn’t seen him make out with anyone since they started their … _thing_ , but hickeys bloom on his neck, now.

“Okay, so I can go back inside and tell Jisung that I’m not calling off our dates indefinitely anymore,” he says, just to say it. Just to watch the push and pull in Dongju’s expression as he battles himself on what to reply.

His lips drop open as if to protest, but he doesn’t say anything in the end.

Silence stretches between them like hardened gum, and Giwook would rather kiss Dongmyeong than bite down on that. He just keeps on staring at Dongju’s face and draws his lips between his teeth.

“I think that’s my corset,” Dongju says after a moment, and his voice is so much quieter now.

So it is, and Giwook feels himself run hot more with shame than anything else at his earlier thoughts. Seeing Dongju like this now, in his perfect little outfit and with his neck bitten raw by other men and his eyes unforgiving, he doesn’t want to be thinking anything like that about him. His stomach coils with nausea.

“Do you want it back?” he asks, hands instinctively reaching behind his back to try to untie it.

“No,” Dongju says far too quickly. “No, keep it.” His adam’s apple bops. “It looks good. Tell Dongmyeong I said so.”

“I will.” His voice comes out a little hoarse. “I’m waiting for him so we can leave, anyway.”

Dongju nods and turns half back around. “I left Yeonjun waiting in there, so I should probably get back to him. I just —” His breath catches when he looks at Giwook again, and he blinks. “I wanted to make sure —”

“It’s okay,” Giwook says when he doesn’t continue. “You can go back. I’m just waiting for Dongmyeong.”

Dongju nods and vanishes back inside. Giwook feels like choking — on his breath or on the tears that are threatening to spill, only because of the state he’s in — when he notices the untucked part of Dongju’s shirt at the back. The crinkles in it, and the hickeys becoming even more pronounced in the wild light of the inside.

Then he’s gone, and all Giwook can do is curl in on himself and wait until the tears ebb away.

Or until Dongmyeong shows up, whichever one occurs first.

At least in dreams, Dongju is still with him. He smiles into the kisses Giwook presses to his lips, and he smells so very real. Feels so very real, warm under his hands and muscles shifting under his skin when he moves.

Giwook misses him, he comes to realize with a crushing absolution even while he’s still bathing in the sunny warmth of the dream. Where Dongju runs a hand through his hair and presses a kiss to his temple and doesn’t let go of him the way he does outside of the dream world. Outside of the bedroom, in whichever way interpreted.

Right here, in this dream, he rests warm and comfortable against Giwook, body lax. It reminds him of that party night, with Dongju way too drunk and falling half asleep, cuddled against him in the back of the taxi.

When Giwook pressed a kiss to his hair because he wanted to, and no one could’ve seen him do it.

He misses him — violently, but he doesn’t have time to think about it. Not when his hands creep up his body, warm, and Giwook can feel his blood rushing. Into his face to warm up his cheeks, make him glow red in the exact way Dongju loves to pick at, and downwards to warm up the rest of his body.

Dongju dives down as if to kiss him again, but he just makes little obnoxious kissing noises by his ear until Giwook starts laughing and pushes at him as the heat in him deflates a little.

“Okay, okay, get off me.” And when the noises don’t stop, he whines, “ _Dongju_.”

The sounds stop at once and Giwook wants to turn away, chase the warmth of the pillows next to him, which look so different from the ones he saw only moments ago, and his body freezes at the very real movement next to him.

This is not a dream anymore.

“What?” a voice that is definitely not Dongju’s asks. A voice that sounds too similar to his, has the same lilt to it but is just that bit too high in tone — a voice that he still knows all too well. One he would recognize anywhere.

He nearly flinches upwards, scrambles backwards on the bed until his back hits the wall. Blood thrums through him at a speed that leaves him dizzy, and he can’t move his hands. They rest uselessly next to him as he stares back at the face in front of him, blown wide in what can only be described as bewilderment.

“ _Dongju?_ ” Dongmyeong splutters. His eyes are wide, blinking at Giwook, brows furrowing above them.

Before Giwook can stop himself, a hushed, “Shit,” escapes his lips. He slaps a hand over his mouth.

And Dongmyeong’s lips fall open as something like realization dawns in his eyes, and he moves backwards. Away from Giwook. His eyes are still lost between staring at his face and fleeing, but he’s starting to find his place.

“Myeong, wait —” Dongmyeong is halfway by the door when Giwook finds the strength to say something.

Dongmyeong turns back around to him, brows still furrowed and lips moving around silent words, spluttering, trying to find his ground in utter silence. The first thing he manages to get out, almost choked and shaking his head in disbelief even as he speaks, is, “Giwook, have you — have you been fucking my brother?”

And what is there to say to that? Shake his head and deny it, call it a slip up? Who would believe that, when he and Dongju have never been close in a way like that and if anyone knows that, it’s Dongmyeong. Who’s tried to get them to get along since they were ten, who pulled them both along on opposite sides of him and tried to make them a group. Attempts that failed every time. And nine years later, they do it on their own, and don’t tell him about it.

What is there to do other than sit there and look back at him, lips closed? Because it’s the truth. He has.

But Dongmyeong isn’t done. Upon Giwook’s silence he falls back against the doorframe, shakes his head, a hand in his hair. “Is _Dongju_ the guy you’ve been seeing?” he asks. “Is he the reason you’re so upset lately?”

Giwook’s gaze travels down to his own hands, now resting in his lap, shaking. What is he to say?

And Dongmyeong only seems to have more realizations the longer he stays silent, figures the complete story out on his own. “Are _you_ the reason _he’s_ been so upset lately? Did you cheat on him the one time you went out with that Jisung guy? Did he cheat on _you_ with that guy last night? Or was that revenge? What is this all about?”

The only thing Giwook can think to say, to save a bit of his honor, is, “No one cheated. We’re not dating.”

“You’re not dating,” Dongmyeong repeats. He blinks at Giwook again. “So what are you, then?”

At that, Giwook can only shrug. Helplessly, even if it makes him feel small in front of Dongmyeong, who stands at the end of the bed like a statue, the monument of a harshly warning brother. Carved into stone, much taller than he is. “I don’t know,” he whispers, curling in on himself a little more. As if to protect his heart. “We’re not anything.”

It hurts to admit, but he knows it’s true. They were never anything, and he never even thought about it. Not until Jisung happened, or maybe Geonhak already. The way Dongju denied being jealous, laughed when Giwook asked if he was, but he was still the one to bring it up in the first place. Why would he care, if there was nothing between them? And then Jisung, the way Dongju asked him to leave. How angry he was that day, the things he said — a too stark contrast to the broken question. _Can you leave?_ And Giwook would do anything.

Dongju wrapped up in the arms of another man — Yeonjun, Giwook remembers. He’s seen him around the studio, new hair color every other week, he’s hard to miss. Youngjo pointed him out once.

 _I hate to admit it because he’s younger than me_ , he said, _but he’s so cool._

Of course Dongju would only go for someone like that, maybe to get his revenge, maybe to show Giwook what kind of men he’s really into when he doesn’t have to take whatever he can get — or maybe he didn’t think about Giwook at all. Because he doesn’t matter all that much to him, in the end. Yeonjun is taller than him, and older, and cooler. Makes better tracks and has better fashion and more funny stories to tell than Giwook ever lived through.

He’s perfect, of course he is. So is Dongju. A perfect match.

“Why are you both so upset, then, if you aren’t anything. Something must have happened.” Dongmyeong doesn’t sound empathetic, not now. His eyes are cold, the exact way Dongju’s were after Jisung. Betrayed.

“It’s complicated.” Giwook hates the way that sounds.

“Of course it is.” Dongmyeong clicks his tongue. “Everything is always too complicated for you. Too complicated to tell me about it, at least.” He shakes his head and turns around for the door.

“I know this looks terrible —,” Giwook tries to start, but Dongmyeong cuts him off with a laugh.

“ _Looks_ terrible?” he asks, and he snorts, but there is no humor to it. “Man, I would be glad if this only _looked_ bad. Tell me, what background facts am I missing that would possibly justify you lying to me about getting it up with Dongju behind my back for —” He cuts himself off, seeming to realize that he doesn’t know how long it’s actually been.

Silence is a vicious friend in moments like this. It spreads like poison in his veins, renders him motionless. He can only sit there and stare at Dongmyeong, his lips sewed shut. Watch as Dongmyeong’s face grows redder.

“How long?” he asks eventually, way too quietly. Like a pinprick to Giwook’s heart.

His gaze finds his own hands again, he can’t stand the sight of Dongmyeong’s face anymore — won’t be able to stand it when he tells him this. He knows they don’t lie to each other. They don’t keep things from each other. He remembers how miffed he felt when he found out that Dongmyeong had been applying to universities without telling him, and this is something else entirely. This includes not only him, but Dongju as well.

He knows he has to tell him the truth, can’t keep lying, but he won’t be able to look him in the eyes while he does.

Giwook swallows hard and braces himself. “You remember that party at your friend’s house, in November last year? The one you almost went home with Hwang Hyunjin from.”

Silence has its grip on the room for another few breaths — it squeezes the air out of Giwook’s lungs, throat getting tighter with every second he waits for Dongmyeong to say something, anything. Until he finally does, and his voice has not become any more relenting. Rough like stone — “That’s almost a full year.”

Giwook closes his eyes. There’s nothing he can say to that, still. “It is.”

From the corner of his eye, he can see Dongmyeong pulling his phone out of his pocket and turning around to storm out of the room. Giwook scrambles off the bed to follow him.

“Look, Myeongie, I’m really sorry —” It comes out as a panic response, and he hates it.

“Oh, are you?” Dongmyeong’s voice cuts into him like knives, and he doesn’t look up from where he’s typing away on his phone. “You could’ve thought about that before you lied to me for nearly a year.”

“It’s not just my story to tell —”

“Oh, I know that.” Dongmyeong shakes his head. “Of course, Dongju is just as guilty in this. But then again, I never explicitly asked him about if he was seeing someone the way I did you. You know I was disappointed when I found out you were lying to me in the first place. And now — this.” He snorts.

“Have you ever considered that it’s none of your business?” Giwook asks quietly, because he wants to.

Dongmyeong whirls around to him, eyebrows climbing far up his forehead. “Come again?”

Giwook squares his shoulders as well as he can, raises his chin a little. Dongmyeong is shorter than him, shorter than Dongju, but he still feels so small in front of him right now. “I said, it’s really none of your business.” A lump lodges in his throat and he has to fight to speak past it normally. “It’s not your life. It has no effect on you, really. It’s my life, and Dongju’s. I don’t owe you every single detail of my life, and I’m allowed to keep secrets if I want to.”

Dongmyeong stares at him, blinks slowly. He doesn’t say anything for a while, just puts his phone back into the pocket of his sweatpants. “Of course,” he says eventually. “Of course, it’s your life. Do whatever you want.”

It sounds too much like what Dongju said to him. _You can do what you want. I can do what I want._ Dongmyeong turns around and slips into coat and shoes by the door, and it feels like Giwook leaving Dongju on the bed when he asked him to leave. He can almost hear the rustling of bedsheets echo in his ears.

“Dongmyeong,” he calls after him, but the door is already open.

“No, you’re right. I’m sorry for pretending like I have any right to your private information. Or Dongju’s.” Dongmyeong shakes his hair out of his eyes when he’s already halfway out the door. Dongju does it the same way, and it hurts to think that. “I won’t be back for a while, but I’ll be safe. Don’t worry.”

He’s gone then. The door falls shut behind him and leaves the apartment in silence.

Giwook sinks back against the doorframe and runs a hand down his face.

Even on the third time, the staircase is already too familiar to climb up. He finds the door with ease, two, three steps down the hall from the top of the staircase and cheap, polished wood. It threatens to give when he knocks.

“Oh oh,” is the first thing Keonhee says upon spotting him when he opens the door. It stays only half open, and Keonhee fills out the entire space between the door and the frame with his body, intentionally. Blocks him from seeing the inside of the apartment, or the inside of the apartment from seeing him. “I don’t think you should be here.” His voice stays hushed, confirming that it’s the inside of the apartment he’s trying to keep Giwook’s presence a secret from.

But Giwook really doesn’t have time for this — the ends of his nerves are on fire, so much that it almost makes him go numb. His mind is in such a state of panic that he finds himself nearly calm.

“I just have one question,” he says, and his voice is eerily stable compared to how jumbled his brain feels. His lips feel stiff, like they should not be able to move this easily, and yet they do. “Is Dongmyeong here?”

Steps sound from behind Keonhee, and Keonhee closes his eyes. “No, he’s not,” he says quickly.

It’s Dongju’s voice coming from behind Keonhee’s shoulder, “Wait, who is that? Is that —” And he knows exactly who it is, of course, and Keonhee doesn’t stand a chance against being pushed away by Dongju.

His face is stained from the red makeup he wore around his eyes the night before, a little bit of a black smudge under his lash line from where he didn’t manage to get all the mascara off, and his lips are red and plump and Giwook really, really hopes that it’s because he had to take a while to scrub the lipstick off.

They stare at each other for a scary amount of time, silence heavy and cold between them, before Dongju takes another step forward and seems to get over himself. “Why would Dongmyeong be here?”

“So he’s not?” Giwook asks to confirm, and he hates how desperate he sounds now. Even if he also hated sounding calm before — that was because only Keonhee was there to see. And he’s not as embarrassed to be desperate in front of a near stranger as he is in front of Dongju’s unmoving, unforgiving eyes.

The twins’ subtle resemblances always keep him on his toes, from their smiles to their disappointed faces.

“He’s not. Why? Did something happen?”

Giwook’s hands twist into the fabric of his sweater, and he sighs. Apparently Dongmyeong didn’t text him, after all, and there is no point in trying to keep something from him that he is bound to find out, eventually.

If only he would have had the same thoughts about Dongmyeong a year ago.

He didn’t, though, and neither did Dongju, and here they are now. Standing in the doorway of Dongju’s apartment with his roommate awkward to the side, away from home, and he has to tell him that he fucked up, even if they haven’t spoken in weeks apart from a drunk conversation last night.

If anyone had told fifteen, or even seventeen or eighteen-year-old Giwook that he would one day, at nearly twenty-one, be standing outside of his best friend’s twin brother’s apartment door to explain to him that said best friend found out about the affair they’ve been having for nearly a year, he would’ve never spoken to them again.

But now here he is, and his heart shatters in his chest when he says, “He knows,” and Dongju’s face falls.

The silence now is even heavier than before, and Giwook is all too aware of Keonhee standing only a step away, and Hwanwoong and Hyungu being somewhere inside the apartment, maybe listening, too. Dongju’s eyes are big and round and he’s staring at Giwook like he just killed a puppy in front of him — his lips drop open as if he wants to protest, but all he gets out is a small sound before he just shakes his head, blinking hard, and turns away.

“How?” he asks eventually, when he seems to have a hold over himself again. “How did he find out?”

Giwook only stares back at him, doesn’t even blink until his eyes start to burn. How is he supposed to tell him that he was dreaming of him, dreaming that they were still together, and that he let his name slip? Out loud?

Dongju would think he’s a fool, that he’s crazy. Maybe he would curse at him, tell him that he has to let go and be willing to be open if he wants this to work, because he can’t expect Dongju to take it, the pain and the jealousy, while not being able to stand it himself. And he would be absolutely right — and it hurts to think that.

“Did you tell him?” Dongju asks when Giwook takes too long to respond, and his voice breaks in the middle.

It aches, it all hurts so much, and Giwook doesn’t know where to look or where to put his hands. Slowly, though, he shakes his head. “No, not actively.” He clears his throat when Dongju frowns. “I said something … incriminating on accident while I was still half asleep, and he connected the dots himself. I couldn’t lie to him when he asked me directly — I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to, and I didn’t want to, either. I’m sorry.”

Dongju closes his eyes and breathes out long and hard, but it’s shaky. “Well, where is he now?”

Giwook shakes his head again. “I don’t know,” he admits, and Dongju’s gaze threatens to burn right through him. “I — we kind of fought. I said something stupid that I shouldn’t have, and he left. He said that he would be safe and that I shouldn’t worry, but I’m not sure. I just wanted to check if he’s here —”

Dongju nods, and he runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. Okay, let’s go looking for him, then.”

Giwook can only stare in surprise as Dongju slips into his shoes and shrugs on a coat. “What? Why?”

“Because he does this all the time, storming off and hiding when he’s mad.” Dongju buttons up his coat and leaves a slightly perplexed looking Keonhee behind in the apartment as he pulls the door shut behind him. “And he’s normally being safe, but I also don’t really trust him. And I think I need to talk to him.”

They hurry down the stairs of the building, though it’s more Giwook stumbling after Dongju. He’s moving way too fast, hands stuffed into his pocket, and he’s not turning around to check if Giwook follows.

“Can I ask what exactly you guys fought about?” he addresses him again once they’re outside.

“Well,” Giwook clears his throat. “He got upset at me, understandably so, and I kind of got upset, too, because I felt like he was being unfair, and maybe I told him that it’s none of his business what we do and that he has no right to be upset at me for keeping things from him.” He bites down so hard on his lip he almost draws blood.

Dongju doesn’t reply, he just keeps on walking. Only once they’ve headed down into the relative warmth, at least shelter from the cold wind, of the subway station does he look at him. “Do you have any idea of where he could be?”

Giwook wracks his brain, but he doesn’t actually have to think long. “Well, he wouldn’t just go wandering around the city in the cold,” he thinks out loud. “And I guess he’s made, like, a million friends since we got here, but I’m pretty sure that there’s currently only one person other than the two of us he’d turn to in distress.”

“Well?” Dongju raises an eyebrow. “Now is not the time for riddles, Lee.”

Fortunately for them, Giwook just figured the way by subway out a week ago to pick Dongmyeong up from there.

Harin’s apartment is situated in a nice building in a much nicer part of town, though it is a bit far from his university. But Harin is also the proud owner of the far too fancy car that he’s driven them around in before.

Giwook knows he has money, has known since probably the first time he met him, at that party that he wore clothes to that no sane poor person would ever let near barely post-pubescent university students swinging shitty alcohol in plastic cups. But it takes him by surprise every time, still.

Dongju doesn’t comment on the nice environment, though Giwook catches him looking around in slight awe when they enter the building and pass through the hall downstairs, all polished floors, to the silver elevators at the end.

There is a mirror on the backside of the door, and Giwook tries not to stare at Dongju. He fails, though.

He wants to stare at him for all eternity if he’s being honest with himself, but he’s not sure if he will ever get to again. Dongju’s cheeks are a little pink from the cold outside, and he’s still blinking to get the residue wind out of his eyes. His hair is ruffled, and he looks upset, and even so, he is beautiful.

Giwook can’t take his eyes off him, even if it makes a lump form in his throat when Dongju very pointedly ignores his gaze in the mirror. Looks anywhere except for the reflection of Giwook’s face until the elevator halts.

“I think it would be best if you waited outside, at least at first,” Dongju tells him as they walk down the hall.

Giwook frowns. “Why?”

“Because he’s upset at both of us, and it would probably be easier for him to deal with only one person he’s upset with. Especially because he’s specifically upset at us for being, like, a thing without his knowledge, and if we appear as a unit that’s somehow standing against him, that would probably only make him more upset. And it has to be you to be the one waiting because not only am I his brother and he will always forgive me in the end no matter how mad he is, but you also already fought with him today. It’s my turn.”

And Giwook hates when Dongju makes sense like this. He’s still the one to knock, at least.

Harin doesn’t even seem surprised when he opens the door to find them on the other side of it. He lets out a long sigh and his eyes fall shut for a moment, but he’s not surprised. “Hi,” he says after a moment.

“Hi,” Dongju responds before Giwook gets the chance to even throw him an apologetic smile. “I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Dongju. We met at a party months ago. I’m —”

“You’re Dongmyeong’s brother,” Harin finishes for him. “And Giwook’s … whatever. I know.”

Dongju nods, but the silence that follows Harin’s words is almost audible on his lips. He presses them together, Giwook knows even if he doesn’t dare turn to look at him. Dongju stood right next to him for that exact reason, Giwook is almost sure. To hinder him from looking. “Is he here?” he asks, eventually.

Harin sighs again and runs a hand down the side of his face. He seems tired, and Giwook once again wonders what time it even was when Dongmyeong woke him up this morning, and when he left. They were all out last night, Harin included, and Giwook doesn’t want to know at what godless hour he was woken up. “Yes, but he told me explicitly not to let you in. But I also think he’s being a little unreasonable, so I think I might let you, anyway.”

In his peripheral, at least, Giwook can see the smile spreading on Dongju’s face. “Great. Giwook is gonna wait out here, though, it would probably be for the best if only I try to talk to him for now. You two can wait together.”

Without even waiting for Harin to reply, Dongju brushes past him into the apartment. Steps out of his shoes by the door and nods when Harin calls after him, “First door on the left down the hall,” and just walks on.

Harin falls back against the doorframe. His hair stands ruffled above his forehead, soft and perhaps right out of bed by the looks of his clothes. The air wafting out of the front door smells like spicy tea and coffee at the same time, and like someone let the breakfast burn. Dongju has long vanished behind the door Harin told him.

“He’s upset at me, too,” Harin says after a moment. Giwook looks up at him. “Because I knew and didn’t tell him.”

Against his will, one of Giwook’s eyebrows wanders up towards his hairline. “You knew?”

Harin shrugs. “Well, I mean, not really. I suspected it, because you two were not exactly being subtle at that one party, with his hand, like, massaging your thigh. But I didn’t even think to bring it up to Dongmyeong because I didn’t think it would be a _secret_ , considering you did it in the open. And I had more important matters to focus on with him.”

Giwook wants to raise his eyebrow even higher and ask him what matters, exactly, but he feels now is neither the time nor the place, and it might also be none of his business. Not anymore.

“Well, I didn’t always want it to be a secret, either. It just kind of happened.”

Harin levels him with a weird look, and Giwook wonders if he sounded too affected. Maybe because he is, though, by all of this. Whatever has been going on with Dongju, and now Dongmyeong is upset with him and Harin is judging him from the sidelines, as are Dongju’s roommates. Keonhee, who warned him about this.

It hurts just a little bit too much to handle, and he figures it has to carry in his voice.

Soft voices carry from deeper in the apartment, not exactly gentle — but Giwook knows all too well that sometimes things have to really crash between Dongmyeong and Dongju for them to be okay.

Harin offers him a seat on his couch and some of the spicy tea he has left, he swears up and down that it’s magical for curing hangovers — another thing that is regrettably still boring inside of Giwook’s skull, and he really wonders if Dongmyeong couldn’t have picked literally any other time to find out about this.

Not when Giwook is fighting off a nasty hangover and isn’t even sure of where he stands with the exact person Dongmyeong is upset at him for getting with. Still finding himself trapped in this weird balancing dance.

Like they’re walking the edge of ruin, always just a step away. And while Dongju is warm and steady beside him, he’s also the only person in the world who could push him down into the abyss.

Harin isn’t the most talkative person in the quiet of his own apartment, with the late morning light still falling in through the windows and the breakfast dishes still unclean in the kitchen sink. Lack of sleep paints dark circles under his eyes, and he blinks slowly while staring at the wall. Giwook feels that all too well. His own eyes droop and static fills his ears. The headache doesn’t help, and he wants nothing more than to go back to bed.

Now that the adrenaline of fighting with Dongmyeong and rushing out to find him and Dongju accompanying him to Harin’s place to track him down has faded, he could very well sink back into the couch cushions and sleep.

Harin drops his head low between his shoulders, and seems close to doing the same.

They both do a good job of ignoring the voice coming from down the hall.

And Giwook must have actually fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing he knows, the light stripes have wandered further down the wall, and the door Dongju vanished behind opens again.

Harin flinches up on the couch opposite of him, too, and Dongju shakes his head at them. Even though he himself looks like he could use at least a full day of sleep and a proper shower, hair standing up at the side of his head even more and the shadow of his mascara now smudged over the top of his cheek, he snorts at the sight of them sleeping.

“How’s he?” is the first thing Giwook manages to ask, sitting up.

Dongju heads straight for the door and pulls his shoes back on, and Giwook follows him, feeling like a lost puppy. Harin bids them goodbye out of the side of his mouth before he leaves to evidently check on Dongmyeong.

Only once they’re out in the hallway does Dongju speak. “He’ll be okay, he’s mostly just being dramatic. He appreciated us coming to check on him, at least, but he asked for some space to think. I tried to explain everything as much as I could from my point of view, but don’t be surprised if he doesn’t come home just yet. He promised that he wouldn’t leave for another place to stay at, at least, even if he’s also upset at Harin. He’s good here.”

Giwook nods slowly and follows Dongju into the elevator with his head lowered.

He doesn’t look at Dongju in the mirror this time, mostly because he can’t stand the sight of him so dishevelled. He keeps his eyes on the reflection of his own shoes, head lowered in what must almost look like shame.

“And what now?” he asks after a few moments of silence, and his voice comes out rough through his dry throat.

“What do you mean?” Dongju asks back, voice betraying no emotion. Maybe because there aren’t any, because this is a pointless question for Giwook to ask. One task of finding and talking to Dongmyeong wouldn’t magically fix everything that’s happened between them. Especially not whatever happened last night.

And maybe also because to Dongju, there might not be anything to be fixed anymore. He’s clearly not half as dependent on Giwook as Giwook is on him, if the bruises on his neck — now thankfully covered by the high neck of his shirt — are anything to go by. Maybe he’s already moved on, accepted that it’s not meant to be.

Meant to be what? Giwook wants to close his eyes, block everything out.

He doesn’t, though. “I don’t know. Do you want me to walk you back home?” he manages to ask.

“My roommates are all home,” Dongju replies, and it stings just a little that it’s the only reason he can think of for Giwook wanting to go home with him. That there’s nothing else he has attached to him. Not even friendship.

Still, before he can stop himself, his mouth says, “Mine isn’t,” and his eyes catch on Dongju’s face in the mirror.

The elevator doors slide open in that moment, and Dongju steps out before him. He crosses down the hall way too quickly, and Giwook can only follow. Rain falls heavy on his head even inside the building.

Fresh air is pleasant on his face when they step outside, and the sun is out. It’s still cold, but the golden white light reflects in Dongju’s eyes when he finally looks at Giwook, for the first time since they left his apartment building. They shine with a weird intensity, and Giwook doesn’t know how to handle it. Like he’s seeing everything.

“I don’t know, Giwook,” he says, and his name on his tongue hits right where it hurts. The middle of his chest. “I just had to talk Dongmyeong out of being mad at me for sleeping with you. Maybe that’s not a good idea today.”

Of course it isn’t, not when Dongju has the hickeys of another man on his neck, anyway, and it’s not what Giwook meant when he asked in the first place, but he doesn’t know how —

“I originally only meant to walk you home,” he finally gets out, even if the words stumble on his lips and his face burns red when Dongju blinks at him. “You know, as friends. That we used to be, remember?”

The last part comes out a lot more vicious than he intended for it to be, and Dongju’s eyes widen a little. He stumbles back a step, before he seems to catch himself. “Right.” He clears his throat. “As friends. Fine.”

So they get back on the subway and Giwook tries not to stare at everyone in there in order to avoid looking over at Dongju all the time. They sit in silence and Dongju fiddles with his fingers in his lap — he seems a lot more nervous than he has the whole day. Perhaps talking to Dongmyeong did awaken something in him, finally.

A child across from them stares while chewing on its lolly, and Giwook sees Dongju smiling at it.

“Don’t you miss high school sometimes?” Dongju asks almost conversationally when a group of young boys gets on two stops before theirs. They’re throwing paper balls at each other across the seats, and most of the other passengers roll their eyes and press their headphones deeper into their ears, turning away, but Dongju is watching them. His fingers still twitch on top of his thigh. “I kind of miss being younger.”

“I do, too,” Giwook confirms, and it’s the most normal conversation they’ve had in weeks, even if he feels there’s a layer to it. “I hate all this studying and the staying up all night to keep up. And I hate this.”

“What do you hate?” Dongju asks, voice going a lot softer.

“Being an adult, I guess.” Giwook has to smile, almost. Wants to laugh, but not for joy. “Being responsible for my own actions and not knowing what I want, really, or what anyone around me wants. I wish I knew.”

It’s a weird conversation to be had on the subway, in between all of these strangers, but now’s as good a time to say it as any, and Dongju actually turns to look at him when he adds, “I wish I could just throw paper balls at you.”

They get off at their stop and don’t say anything until they reach Dongju’s apartment door.

“Tell me when Dongmyeong comes home?” Dongju asks before he unlocks the door, and Giwook promises.

Dongju nods, and then that’s it. They don’t hug or even say goodbye, really. Dongju just stands until Giwook turns away. The numbers on the keypad beep behind him, and he wants to turn around.

“Hey, Giwook.” It takes less than a split second for him to spin around. Dongju almost smiles at that. The door is already open in front of him, and he has one hand on the door frame and one foot in the door, but he’s looking at Giwook, with eyes so open. Like they have always been. “I’m sorry.”

For what, Giwook doesn’t ask. He just presses his lips together in a smile. “Me too,” he says into the quiet.

The door falls shut behind Dongju, and Giwook turns around. Leaves.

Dongmyeong doesn’t come home that night, as Dongju prophesied, and Giwook doesn’t know how he even spends the day. He returns home after dropping Dongju off at his place and crashes on the couch to get another good few hours of sleep, but also be around in case Dongmyeong tries to sneak back in.

If he does, Giwook is none the wiser, because he wakes up when the sun is already going down again, and he’s alone. He gets dinner at a nearby takeout place because he’s too lazy to dig through the fridge, and he opens the window in the living room while he eats, even if it’s way too cold. The fresh air helps clear his head, and he can finally think of something other than Dongju with the wind in his face and warm food in his belly.

He forgets to close it before he goes to sleep, and the apartment is an icebox in the morning.

Wrapping himself into the warmest clothes he owns, he ditches breakfast in favour of getting out of this place and grabbing some hot coffee at the place down the street on his way to class.

He barely remembers the way to class, too, except for the smiling face of the barista at the coffee shop and the kind words she offers him when she notices the way he’s still shaking in his coat, and the way he almost stumbles over an edge in the sidewalk and nearly spills the coffee down his shirt before he even reaches the first station.

By the time he comes home in the afternoon, the apartment has warmed up again, and he can take off his coat. He drops his keys into the bowl on the counter and flops down on the couch.

His classes are done for the day and he only really has one assignment to work on to feel a little better about himself for not pushing it back until the due date, and he’s thinking about dropping by the studio in the evening, so he should maybe get on that. Right after he’s closed his eyes for just ten minutes —

A door opens and Giwook rubs at his eyes. He hasn’t actually fallen asleep yet, but he was just on the verge of it, when he sits up and spots Dongmyeong by the front door, staring at him.

His hair is swept back by the wind and his cheeks are rosy from the cold, and his eyes are big.

“Oh,” Giwook manages to say smartly. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Dongmyeong smiles at him, and whatever took over his entire expression yesterday — shock and a shade of disgust, betrayal — has vanished. The smile is big and takes over his entire face, even his eyes.

It only takes him a few steps to reach Giwook after he takes off his shoes, and his coat hits Giwook in the face and bunches up under his chin when Dongmyeong topples down on top of him, nearly smothers him to death. He’s big and warm and heavy on top of Giwook, and Giwook only frees his arms to hug him back.

The scent of a strange shampoo clings to his hair, and Giwook figures this is how Harin smells.

“I’m so sorry,” is the first thing Dongmyeong says when he pulls away. His face is red from something else now, and he’s avoiding looking Giwook in the eyes. “I shouldn’t have —”

“Why are you apologizing?” Giwook asks, a laugh bursting past his lips before he can stop it. And his mouth only continues, “ _I_ have to apologize. I’m the one who fucked your brother.”

Dongmyeong’s eyes widen as he stares at him and his lips drop open, and for a horrible moment Giwook’s blood runs cold as he imagines this was all just a dream and he and Dongmyeong fought because of something entirely else and he just revealed the big secret to him this way — because that’s what brains do, before Dongmyeong laughs instead of protesting. Laughs so hard he falls forward against Giwook again, has to hold on to him.

“Well, I guess you’re right about that,” he sniffs through his laughter, wiping at his nose.

A grin takes over Giwook’s face, and he holds Dongmyeong steady as he shakes with laughter. “Yes. And I’m sorry, I really am. I know I shouldn’t have lied to you and it was fucked up from start to finish.”

Dongmyeong calms down enough to nod, wipe at a tear of hysteria that escaped the corner of his eye. “Thank you for apologizing,” he accepts. “I really appreciate it, and I hope this won’t happen again. I still wanna apologize, though, because I still shouldn’t have gotten so mad at you for something that is indeed your private life. I’m sorry.”

Giwook nods, deciding not to fight it.

There has been many an apology between him and Dongmyeong in the past ten years, when they used to fight about the smallest of things, fights escalating because they were both impulsive teenage boys once, and they know their way around these kinds of situations. They fight, they don’t talk for a while, they apologize, Giwook recognizes that Dongmyeong has forgiven him by the look on his face, and they lean against each other on the couch.

That’s how it always goes, and this is no exception. Giwook forgets about the assignment he has to do and his plans to drop by the studio because Dongmyeong is here now and they put on a movie.

And when Dongmyeong is half dozing off to the soundtrack, Giwook takes his phone out.

_Giwook [4:21pm]: Dongmyeong came home just now. He’s okay and I think we’re okay._

_Dongju [5:34pm]: Okay. Thank you :)_

It’s a couple of days later that Giwook first dares to talk to Dongmyeong about it again.

They’re sitting at the breakfast table, though Giwook has long finished his food and is only still here to keep Dongmyeong company as he shovels beans into his mouth while attempting to finish his reading over the edge of his bowl, and Giwook almost feels bad for interrupting him. But then again, he knows Dongmyeong would really rather be doing anything else than his anatomy readings.

“Have you talked to Dongju lately?” Giwook asks, and Dongmyeong raises his head.

Raises his eyebrow, too, and Giwook is glad to see a spark of mirth in his eyes. “Well, sure,” he says. “Though I’m also sure that you probably talk to him more than I do, hmm?”

Giwook bites down on his lip so hard it hurts. Because he and Dongmyeong have yet to talk about Giwook’s thing with Dongju beyond their apology, Giwook has also not yet had the chance to tell Dongmyeong that he and Dongju might actually be a thing of the past already. Maybe because he’s not entirely ready to accept that himself.

He hasn’t talked to Dongju since he told him that Dongmyeong came home, and he isn’t sure if that will change. They are more or less back to where they were before that party one year ago, just even more awkward.

And with a lot of unwanted feelings involved that make Giwook’s heart break into pieces at the mention of his name.

“Actually, about that,” he starts, kind of mumbling into his own hand. “It happens to be the case that I don’t actually talk to Dongju at all, and I was wondering how he’s doing. That’s why I asked.”

Dongmyeong frowns. “What do you mean you don’t talk to him?”

Giwook lets his head fall. “It’s … very complicated. I know you hate when I say that, and I promise I’m not saying that to get out of having to tell you, it just really is complicated. I used to talk to him a lot, I guess, I used to see him at least once a week. But it’s … not like that anymore. Basically, I’m afraid that most of our fight was pointless because Dongju and I aren’t even seeing each other anymore.”

It hurts even more to admit it out loud. His fingers curl in on themselves on top of the table.

Dongmyeong stares at him and slowly rests his chopsticks into his bowl. “Why?” he asks, frowning again.

Giwook shrugs, and he hates how helpless he feels. Almost like the day Dongmyeong found out, towering in front of him like a mountain of dread and he himself feeling so small. “I don’t know. We just … aren’t.”

“Do you not know or do you not want to tell me?” Dongmyeong asks, and his tone is almost too sharp again. Giwook flinches. Maybe through all of this, Dongmyeong has become even more attuned to knowing when he’s lying.

“Sorry,” Giwook mumbles. “I know, I promised. It’s just.” He closes his eyes, the words resting heavy on his tongue. He hasn’t even admitted them to himself yet, much less to anyone else. “I … I guess I like him.”

“Shouldn’t that imply more talking to him instead of less?”

“Not if I almost accidentally went on a date with someone that I thought was cool simply _because_ I thought he was cool and didn’t even have any real interest in dating him and Dongju got jealous and we kind of fought about it and established that we’re not exclusive even though it didn’t feel like either of us really wanted to come to that conclusion and Dongju just did because he was mad and didn’t want to admit it. And ever since, he’s been sleeping with other people. And I’m jealous and I have no way of telling him because we haven’t even been talking.”

He has to take a deep breath as soon as the words are out, feeling like he ran a marathon. They are not things he’s ever previously even let himself think about, but now they are out in the open, and what is he to do?

Dongmyeong blinks at him, clearly taken aback by the pour of words. “Oh,” he says slowly. “So, wait, it actually _was_ revenge when he made out with that guy on Halloween and I asked you if it was?”

Giwook shrugs, and he can’t take his eyes off his own hands. “I guess. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.”

“You just said that you had a feeling he didn’t even want to say that you aren’t exclusive.”

His hands have never seemed this interesting before, the fine tendons spanning the back of his hand, the movement of his knuckles under his skin. “Yes, but I also like him and might be interpreting things the way I want them to be rather than the way they are. Maybe he just really doesn’t care.”

Dongmyeong falls very quiet for a moment, and when Giwook looks up at him he has both of his lips curled between his teeth, frowning. “Well, I have talked to him lately, and I can confirm he’s as much a mess as you are.”

And even if he doesn’t really want Dongju to be a mess, of course, it still satisfies some part of him. That Dongju isn’t doing fine, that he hasn’t just moved on and pushed Giwook to the back of his mind. Maybe, if he’s just as hung about him as Giwook is on him, or even just a little, this is not over yet. There might still be time.

Time for what, Giwook doesn’t know yet, but it calms him nonetheless.

Dongmyeong gives him a smile over his bowl, and Giwook can’t help but return it.

“Hi Giwook.” The words are said so cheerily, they knock the breath right out of Giwook’s lungs.

Jisung sits right in a spot warmed by the sun falling in through the window, drawn to it like a cat, and it reflects off the strands of his hair and his eyes when he smiles up at Giwook. A mug of coffee is steaming between his hands, and he has a textbook and his notes spread out on the table in front of him, but his eyes are on Giwook, now.

“Hi Jisung.” Giwook inches forward awkwardly. “I didn’t know if you’d be here today.”

“Oh, I’m here almost every day.” Jisung waves him off. “Come on, sit down. What do you need?”

Giwook clears his throat while he sinks down on the worn out leather couch opposite of the chair Jisung is occupying, just shielded from the sun by the tall plant next to the window. He feels his face grow warm at the way Jisung keeps smiling at him — they haven’t really talked since Giwook spilled the jungle juice on his shoes on Halloween, and texted him the next day to apologize and offer to replace them, which Jisung denied.

They met at the studio once between then and now, and Jisung only gave him an awkward smile in passing.

Really, Giwook doesn’t set out to ruin all of his friendships, all of his relationships on purpose. And he feels now a time has come for him to fix all that he’s messed up.

Dongmyeong first and foremost, because he’s both the most important to him and also the person he fucked up with the most, and then Geonhak, who he texted yesterday to apologize for just leaving on Halloween, and how he’s been making things awkward. And now Jisung, in this pretty little cafe, the place of their first date.

Jisung is looking at him, hair still falling into his face and a warm spot of the sun on his cheek. He looks nothing like Dongju, but there is something in the quirk of his smile. And maybe that was what Giwook was looking for.

Maybe he was just looking for Dongju in someone without the trouble that came with them being Dongju, of all people, and Giwook feels like a horrible person for even thinking that. That he could have been using Jisung to soothe his aching heart, to fill the Dongju shaped hole in his heart left behind by a relationship so unachievable.

“I don’t need anything, really,” Giwook says, shifting in his seat. “I’m just here to talk to you.”

Jisung’s face lights up, and Giwook feels even worse. “Oh, of course.” And with a little more humor to his voice and a smile on his lips, he adds, “Though I thought you said no more dates until you sort it out with your person?”

Giwook wants to laugh and roll his eyes, tell him that talking does not equal a date, but his breath catches on the phrase he uses. His person. Maybe Dongju is his person, and he was just too blind to see it.

All those nights of pointless conversations, the lights turned down low even when they were long done, spread out next to each other on whoever’s bed, no need for clothes or an end to their talking. Endless words losing themselves in the dark of the night. Where they were safe. Where no one could see their linked hands.

A first night in that bathroom, tucked away; the back of a taxi and pressing a kiss into Dongju’s hair because no one would be able to see and ask; always hiding from sight, but they did it together. And they did it willingly. They laughed about it, Dongju’s hands on his face, angling his head up towards him and grinning into a kiss. They talked until the sun melted away the night, and Dongju had to sneak back, and they laughed into the silence.

Maybe he’s found his person, and he was just too scared to admit it.

Now that Dongmyeong knows, what’s stopping him? Well, right now, his conversation with Jisung, for one.

He tries to still make a joke about it, squeezing an awkward laugh out of his lungs. “I don’t think talking can be counted as a date,” he says, settling his arms on the table to regain some of his composure. “And sadly, at this point I might have to tell you that I don’t think we’ll ever go on a date again. And I’m here to apologize for that.”

Jisung raises his eyebrows. “You don’t have to apologize for that,” he says, and it sounds like a laugh. “When you told me that you have someone else, I didn’t think that we would ever be going out again, anyway.”

Giwook tries not to flinch. “Yeah, and I’m sorry for that. It sounds like I’m a cheater, oh god, I’m so sorry.”

Jisung laughs for real this time, and he shakes his head. “There’s really nothing to be sorry for. You explained the situation to me, and I understand. Non-exclusive stuff can get complicated so fast, as soon as someone catches feelings. My friend got tangled up in something like that once.” He smiles. “And I mean, I’m also not blind.”

“What do you mean?” Giwook asks, even as his blood runs cold and freezes him in place.

“Well, it wasn’t hard to follow your stare when you spilled that drink on my shoes because of those guys making out in the crowd. I don’t know which one it was, but he must’ve been one of them. I’m not too stupid to tell when someone is that ragingly jealous right in front of me. I knew I had no place to mingle with that. Don’t want to, either.”

Giwook shrugs, and looks down at his own hands. “Yeah, I guess it’s better that way.”

“Definitely. If I didn’t know you, I would’ve thought you were about to deck the guy in the face. And I don’t know the other person, and I’m not exactly keen on being on the receiving end of that if I ever meet him.”

Hiding his smile behind the drink the waitress sets down in front of him in that moment, Giwook shakes his head. “I don’t think Dongju is a particularly violent person. At least not towards people he doesn’t know, and never in any seriousness, so I think you’re good.” He shrugs. “You might even get along. He’s a bit shy, but he’s nice.”

Jisung squints at him, but there’s no heat behind his eyes. More like wit. “Try not to get all mushy about your new guy after you just broke my heart.” He splays his hand on his chest, right over his heart.

Giwook snorts, even if his face grows warm. He’s not mushy. Right? “Well, I’m sorry to tell you that my thing with him has actually been going on for like a year, so if anything, _you_ would’ve been my new guy.”

Jisung curses under his breath, but a smile spreads on his face.

“But really,” Giwook starts again. “I’m here to apologize, actually. For dragging you into this mess and not even warning you about the fact that I was … seeing someone else before we even met. Was still actively seeing him before and after our date. And for the fact that I maybe … used you to replace him because I didn’t think it would work out between him and I for much longer, and I must’ve seen something in you that reminded me of him.”

Jisung takes a sip of his drink and shrugs. “You know, when you put it like that it does sound like I should be hurt by it, but I’m telling you, I don’t really care. I haven’t like, caught feelings for you, so it’s okay. I forgive you.”

And Giwook is grateful that he doesn’t tell him he doesn’t need to apologize again. Because he does, and by the look on Jisung’s face, he’s realized that, too. And he forgives him. Which is worth a lot more.

They finish their drinks talking about everything and anything — class, a professor that they share, the projects they’re working on right now, and some things that have been happening at the studio. Like the fight Youngjo had with one of the rappers he works with, and how it travelled through every floor of the building.

Jisung is still nice, is still warm and still smiles so brightly. None of that changed after the change in their relationship. He still talks to Giwook like he’s excited for him to answer, still talks to him like he wants to.

And when Giwook gets up to leave him to his studying, finally, Jisung gets up, too, and hugs him.

“While I have to admit that I am a bit sad about you not being available, I really think you’re so cute, I am also really happy for you,” he says, and it sounds like the truth. “If it all works out, I mean.” He pats Giwook on the shoulder, and his smile is earnest when he pulls away from the hug. “Don’t let someone like that go, man.”

A smile pulls at Giwook’s lips, and he returns the shoulder pat all too happily. Promises that he won’t.

And when he leaves the cafe now, he’s not floating above the sidewalk anymore and he’s not itching to pull out his phone and text Jisung the way he did the last time he left that cafe after talking to him. And he doesn’t feel the glee radiating off his face when he gets home, his head doesn’t spin, his heart isn’t beating in his throat. Because he’s not in love with Jisung, and he never was. But there’s a lightness to the way his heart beats in his chest.

Like relief, flushing all the dirt out of his system. He smiles at Dongmyeong, who’s sitting by the kitchen table, and Dongmyeong smiles back. Eyes full of an emotion Giwook can’t name, even if he doesn’t know what happened.

He doesn’t ask, either, and they spend their evening in a comfortable silence.

Curled up in his bed later that night, with a pillow balled up under his head and his blanket tucked around his shoulders like he’s trying to shield himself from the cold creeping in through the window — or something else — he pulls his phone closer to his face and opens a long abandoned chat. The last message sent weeks ago.

_Dongju [11/2, 5:34pm]: Okay. Thank you :)_

Giwook smiles at his phone like it’s a sad memory, letting himself swim in the weird emotion that last message instills in his heart. Dongju in the elevator of Harin’s apartment building, on the subway home.

There was something that day. The high school boys throwing paper balls at each other, and Dongju asking him if he missed being young like they never stopped being casual with each other. The sun on his face and in his hair, and how warm he sat next to him on the subway. Giwook’s heart beating in his throat.

It was a day before he sent the message, but it was in direct relation. _Tell me when Dongmyeong comes home?_

The hint of caring in his eyes, the way he looked after he talked to Dongmyeong at Harin’s place. How he was softer afterwards, no longer as harsh and unforgiving as before. _That we used to be, remember?_

And a soft voiced, _What do you hate?_ as if he didn’t know exactly.

Giwook closes his eyes for a moment, lets it take him over completely, lets the feeling run its course through his veins. And when he opens them again, his thumbs move across the screen on their own. His nerves electricized by the thought of Dongju’s face on the sidewalk outside of Harin’s place. _Oh. Right._

He’s been missing him so violently, and it crashes over his head like a wave. Like hands reaching out of his skull, grabbing and pulling at the strings, tugging every memory of Dongju back to him. A smile, a darkened room.

The first brush of a hand against Giwook’s chest, one night at a stupid high school party they were too old to attend, taking his breath away. All the nights that followed. Red cheeks turning into a red nose. And it’s his fault.

He takes a deep breath, and hits send.

_Giwook [11:56pm]: Hey :) Haven’t heard from you in a while, how are you doing?_

The room smells too much like weed, and it makes Giwook’s head spin. His thoughts feel like cotton candy, too sweet and sticky in his ears, filling them up and blocking out any noise. The music doesn’t reach him here.

In the middle of the makeshift dance floor, moving his body to a beat he can’t hear. He’s long lost sight of Dongmyeong, but Harin was here earlier. Maybe to pick him up, or to take him somewhere else. You never know with these two, Giwook had to find — how much of it is caring and how much do they just want to fuck each other?

But something else is taking up his time, and he has to remind himself of it.

A warm body pressed against him, closer than any of the others, moving in sync with his. The person moves and Giwook follows like there is nothing else to do, not logically. Like his body is made for following them.

Kisses pressed to his neck, so wet the spit almost runs down his skin, but he doesn’t find himself complaining. It’s kind of hot, even with all of these people around them. Maybe because of all the people around them. Because the person trails their hands up his shoulders, the ghost of a touch, and they wind into his hair in a way that’s too familiar.

Dongju. Running his hands through Giwook’s hair like he always does, tugging at the locks.

Giwook keeps his eyes closed for fear of losing this dream, but his arms move on their own accord. Snake their way around Dongju and pull him closer, never let him go again. His head spins, but this much he knows.

Dongju clings onto him, too, a hand moving out of his hair to twist into the side of his shirt and pull hard enough for the fabric to almost tear. Like he wants him all to himself, too, like he’s not going to let go. The people around them fade away and Giwook’s head is filled with nothing but Dongju as they twist into each other.

There is so much to take, so much he couldn’t have for so long, and so little time. How long until Dongju would slip away from him again, until this dream would pop like a bubble and he’d be all alone again?

How long until Dongmyeong would step back into the scene, and Dongju would pull away like burned?

Even though Dongmyeong knows about them now, it still feels like a taboo to be kissing in public when he could be anywhere near here. When he could step in any minute and be disgusted at them, because this is Giwook and Dongju. Would Dongju kiss him with Dongmyeong around, or would he realize himself? Would he finally think it’s disgusting to be sleeping with his own brother’s best friend, too? Would he leave?

And all of that theorizing is still based on if this was reality. If this wasn’t a dream.

But Dongju pulls away, slowly his lips leave Giwook’s and just as slowly, Giwook opens his eyes. To find Dongju’s own half open in front of him, colorful points of light in them, and he looks so real. In a dream, he would look more perfect, perhaps, even if Giwook loves the fact that he isn’t perfect like this. A pimple on his forehead, right above his eyebrow. A bit of a tilt to his mouth when he looks up at Giwook, and his breath smells like alcohol.

And their breaths mingle between their faces, warm and stinking of all they consumed tonight, and they’re so close. So close he can feel every inch of Dongju’s body, even those that aren’t touching him. Warm.

His hand twists deeper into Giwook’s shirt, and Giwook almost lets out a sob at the realization. His eyes certainly fill up against his will, effect of all the weed he’s smoked tonight. This is not a dream.

This is real, Dongju is here. Right in front of him, kissing him and pulling at his shirt and looking at him. Like he wants to drown in Giwook, too, and like he never wants to leave. His lips are only inches away from Giwook’s, the ghost of their touch still lingering. Giwook can still taste him in his mouth.

“What?” Giwook wants to ask, wants to ask him what this means and if he will leave again, wants to ask everything. But he just stares at him, takes him in with all the emotion in his eyes, all the feeling.

“Don’t worry,” Dongju says, and there’s a smile in the words. Reassuring. His hands rest on Giwook’s back, locking him in. He’s not letting go again, he only pulls him even closer, until they almost stumble into each other. Dongju’s face is so close to his, and his eyes are so full of everything. “Don’t worry, and don’t _go_.”

Giwook shakes his head, desperate, and their lips crash back together. It feels like gasping for air. Like oxygen filling his lungs again after being forced underwater for too long, Dongju like a warm weight in his arms.

He’s something to cling onto, at least. Like a safety ring keeping him afloat, raising hope in the ocean.

Even when they stop kissing, Giwook doesn’t let go of him, just presses even closer. Lets his head drop onto Dongju’s shoulder, hides his face away there and breathes him in. He doesn’t want to see the world anymore, not for now. Not with Dongju here to hold on to him and shield him from all the bad things.

He’s so warm, so steady despite all the fear between them. The uncertainty still tucked into the niches of their minds, never letting go of them, everything that’s been haunting them. But Dongju stays steady despite it. For him.

Really, Giwook has smoked a lot of weed tonight and he’s probably being a sap and dramatic, but he hasn’t felt like walking on steady ground in what feels like months, maybe not since he and Dongju first started doing this, over a year ago. This — out in public, where everyone can see, lips on lips and arms twisted around each other — feels like they finally broke through the ceiling and only found a steadier ground below.

Giwook wants to shake and cry, but instead he just leaves his head where it is and breathes Dongju in.

“Let me take you home,” Dongju whispers into his ear, and Giwook’s brain turns to mush. His heart beats so loud he’s sure Dongju can hear it, can at least hear the pulse in his neck. “You’re fucked up.”

“I am,” Giwook whispers back, and he raises his head again to look at him. Smile even if his eyes hurt.

He hasn’t even noticed that they moved, but they’re no longer in the middle of the dance floor. The music has become quieter because they’re in what looks to be the kitchen, now. And Dongju is holding his hand.

“You want some water?” he asks, stroking a thumb down Giwook’s cheek. It feels like caring.

He nods, because he does. His head is swimming in the weird mix of weed and vodka, and his throat feels parched. Water might alleviate both of that, and it does, a little, when Dongju presses a cool cup into his hand. Not much one cup of water can do about the head, but he still feels better after he finishes it.

Maybe that’s something to do with the way Dongju clings onto his back, too. Winding his arms around Giwook’s middle and pressing his head against his shoulder, like a warm blanket draped over him. He presses a kiss there.

They stumble out of the house hand in hand, because they can, and Dongju is just as drunk as him. Just that he must have left out the joint, because he can apparently still see where they are headed, and he leads Giwook by their intertwined hands. Someone calls something from behind them, but Giwook has no energy to turn around.

He slumps forward against Dongju when they’re inside what he guesses is a taxi, just like all those months ago. It feels like it was yesterday, but now it’s Dongju’s hand in his hair and he can barely keep his eyes open.

Dongju’s heart beats under his ear, unsteadily and yet so reassuring, and Giwook only presses closer. Dongju is still holding onto his hand, intertwined fingers resting in his lap now, and Giwook smiles down at them. They fit, both not particularly big, moulding into each other like they were meant to. Dongju’s fingers surround his.

He’s seen them at work somewhere completely else, and this feels so soothingly innocent compared.

“Are you gonna leave?” he asks before he can stop himself, lips moving against his will. His heart contracts in his chest when Dongju stops stroking his hair for a moment. Like hesitation. “Please don’t leave.”

“I won’t,” Dongju whispers, and he leans down just a little to kiss the top of Giwook’s forehead.

And with the reassurance sitting warm in his belly, Giwook lets his eyes fall shut.

He’s woken up, he doesn’t know how much later, by the sound of Dongmyeong’s voice. “I just want to let you two know that while I’m not, like, mad at you or am telling you what to do, I am still extremely disturbed by this.”

Giwook opens his eyes to find him standing in the door of the apartment, his coat in one hand and his shoes still on. His hair is standing up above his forehead and his shirt is buttoned wrong at the front, so Giwook doesn’t think he has much room talking about things that disturb him. But this is Dongmyeong, and he does what he wants.

Giwook himself is propped up against a warmth that turns out to be nothing other than Dongju’s chest, here on the couch, his head rolled forward onto his shoulder and an arm wrapped around Giwook’s back. His palm is sweaty where it’s still aligned with Dongju’s, but he doesn’t pull away, not even to get a proper look at Dongmyeong.

“Well, I am extremely disturbed that you’re screwing someone from your _anatomy class_ , of all places to get to know someone, but I’m keeping my mouth shut about it, too, am I not?” he mumbles sleepily.

Dongju stirs under him, hand moving against Giwook’s back, and Giwook snuggles a little closer to him immediately, as if that would serve to keep him under in any way. He’s not sure if he’s ready for him to wake up.

But Dongmyeong doesn’t even think about quieting down, it seems. He snorts audibly at Giwook’s words, drops his shoes by the door, and moves on into the kitchen, from where he calls, “Yeah, but that’s still not as bad as screwing your best friend’s brother behind said best friend’s back for a year. If you kiss in front of me, I will scream.”

At some point, Dongmyeong’s voice must register in Dongju’s head, because his eyes fly open and he tenses up. It makes him immediately become a lot less comfortable to lie on, too, and Giwook sighs and raises his head.

“It’s okay,” he mumbles at Dongju’s panicked gaze. “He’s only voicing his utter disgust.”

The fact that Dongmyeong has indeed known about this being a thing for a little while now seems to arrive in Dongju’s brain, too, and he relaxes. Nods. “Okay.” Giwook wants to sink back down against his chest, get another few minutes of rest in, but now Dongju’s eyes are on his face, and he has to awkwardly shuffle away from him.

Things were much easier when they were both drunk last night, a lot less awkward. But they will have to talk about things eventually, and being awkward the morning after stumbling home together might be the best base for that, seeing as nothing else seems to have worked so far. Maybe Dongmyeong is the catalyst here.

He is, Giwook confirms to himself as he watches Dongmyeong bustle around in the kitchen so he doesn’t have to look at Dongju’s face. In more ways than one. Him not knowing about what was going on between them was the primary reason they never talked about it, either, because if they ever made this something more than it always was, they would’ve had to tell him. Or he was bound to find out. Now that he knows, there might be a chance.

To talk about it, at least, gauge if Dongju stands where he does. Get a better look at the situation.

But for now, Giwook avoids the gaze Dongju is directing at his face in favor of pretending to look at Dongmyeong. He ignores the hand still resting against his leg, where it dropped after he pulled away. Dongju doesn’t move it.

He knows they have to talk, there’s no way around it anymore, but that doesn’t mean he wants to.

What he wants to do right now is just have this, forever. Falling asleep with Dongju so close, even if he can’t remember how they even got here, a hand on him, always. Making sure he’s still here. Doesn’t leave. Their knees knock together on the couch, and Giwook doesn’t pull his leg away. Dongju’s hand moves on his thigh, but he doesn’t pull it away. The fingers just scratch across the fabric of his pants as he turns to look for Dongmyeong, too.

Dongmyeong returns from the kitchen in a silly apron and with a pot in his hands not much later. “Do you two … nasties want to eat breakfast with me, or do you wanna …” He gestures vaguely towards Giwook’s bedroom door.

Giwook huffs. “We’re barely awake and you’re already accusing us of being horny?”

Dongmyeong’s eyebrow wanders so far up his forehead it almost disappears in his hairline, and he clears his throat. “I mean, not that I’d be wrong, but I was actually asking if you two wanted to talk before you eat.”

He feels his face grow warm. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh._ ” A laugh bubbles out of Dongmyeong’s mouth and he shakes his head. “God, you’re both unbelievable. Do you want breakfast or not, is what I’m asking.”

“I think breakfast would be nice,” Dongju says softly, stealing the opportunity from Giwook. He smiles when Giwook looks at him and pushes himself off the couch. He’s still in his clothes from last night, now crinkled, but so is Giwook. At least it means they never got undressed in any way. “I think I would also like to shower, though.”

“Right.” Dongmyeong nods before he shakes his head again. “Come eat, shower, then do what you need to do.”

And so Giwook finds himself gathered around the kitchen table with both of the twins and his own demons looming over his back. Dongmyeong looks at ease with having Dongju here, no matter the circumstances, and Dongju doesn’t look half as embarrassed as Giwook expected him to be — which leaves Giwook as the only embarrassed, uncomfortable one. The feeling creeps up his back, and he wants to hide under the table.

Instead, he eats the food Dongmyeong made and compliments him on it, because he’s already expecting the whack on the back of his head if he doesn’t, and he avoids looking at Dongju too closely.

Dongju asks him to pass the sauce, and his hand brushes along his arm unnecessarily. Giwook tenses as he reaches for the pot, but he figures it doesn’t feel bad. Even if Dongmyeong gives him kind of a look, it feels nice for Dongju to be randomly touching him where they couldn’t before. To be so casual about it. He hands him the sauce.

The next time he looks up, Dongmyeong is smiling around his mouthful of food, almost a little mischievously.

“Okay,” Dongju says when he’s emptied his plate, and he pushes away from the table. “I’m gonna take a quick shower, I feel gross. I’ll be back.” He looks at Giwook, then. “If you want to talk.”

There is no actual pressure behind his words, but there’s no way Giwook can say no. Not with Dongmyeong looking at him, too, and his eyes already darkening again when he sees the way Giwook hesitates even after Dongju has left the room. It’s long decided — they have to talk, whether they want to or not. There’s no other way.

If they don’t, the world as they know it might entirely shift on its axis — for the worse.

Dongmyeong opens his mouth, likely to tell him exactly that, but Giwook cuts him off, “I know I have to talk to him. I know, and I will. Doesn’t mean that I want to, but I definitely don’t want to stay like this, either.”

Dongmyeong closes his mouth again, and raises an eyebrow. Unimpressed. “Well, good. Now that he’s gone — I know that he seems to be taking it in stride, but I can promise you that this is taking a big toll on him, too. If you mess this up for both of you because you’re not willing to put the effort in, I will bury you alive in the yard.”

Even if the threat sounds scary out of Dongmyeong’s mouth like this, with how he’s leaning over the table and all, Giwook can still only roll his eyes. “I promise I’m more than willing to. Calm down.”

Dongmyeong frowns at him, but his lips jut out in a pout at the same time. “I’m just worried.”

“Of course you are, and I’m trying to tell you that it’ll be okay, and if anyone should be nervous, it’s _me_. I’m the one who has to tell a former casual hookup that I like him. I’m the exact kind of person you hate.”

A laugh escapes Dongmyeong’s mouth before he can slap his hand over it, but he concedes to a nod. “I can’t even say you’re wrong. But even I managed to settle down a little in the end, so I guess everyone can change.”

Giwook rolls his eyes, wants to tell Dongmyeong that they’re only twenty, that no part of their personalities is already set in stone, and neither is his tentative relationship (if it even is one yet) with Harin. But he’s not an ass, at least he doesn’t try to be one, and he’s not in a bad mood, so he doesn’t.

He just helps Dongmyeong clean the kitchen, which earns him a weird side hug he tries to wiggle away from, and then he waits for Dongju, with his knees tucked under his chin and his hands clasped around his shins.

Dongju emerges from the shower only fifteen minutes after entering the bathroom, with his hair still damp and dressed in a jumper and sweatpants that Giwook knows he must have stolen from Dongmyeong’s wardrobe. They make him look eerily soft in the morning light of the apartment, and Giwook wants to reach out for him.

Instead, he just gets up, meets him halfway to the door of his bedroom. “Let’s talk, then,” he says.

There is something in Dongju’s face, something like hesitation. Maybe a hint of fear, now that the factor alcohol and drugs is gone, and it’s only them. Naked minds, standing in front of each other. Feeling a little sick from the hangover, but it makes them more honest, too. He tucks his hands under his arm and leans against the inside of Giwook’s bedroom door — putting distance between them, but also locking up his way out.

Dongmyeong is silent on the other side of the door, and Giwook hopes he isn’t listening.

“Let’s talk,” Dongju confirms belatedly. The hint of fear, hesitation doesn’t leave his eyes, but they are determined, nonetheless. Dark circles frame them, but he’s wide awake. “I do have a lot I want to say, but if you want to start —”

“No,” Giwook says way too quickly, shaking his head. It makes Dongju smile, at least. “You start.”

“Okay, well.” Dongju clears his throat. His cheeks grow red, and it makes Giwook feel a lot better about himself. “For one, I think that we should’ve talked a lot earlier, and I know that’s also my fault. You tried to get me to talk to you, but I refused and lied about what I wanted so I wouldn’t seem desperate.”

Giwook nods, sitting down on his bed. “Yeah, I guessed you were lying, but I didn’t want to push you.”

Dongju nods, too. His adam’s apple bops when he swallows. “Yes, I also betted that you wouldn’t, which is why I lied in the first place. I’m sorry for that. Things would’ve been easier if I’d just been honest with you from the start.”

“It’s okay,” Giwook mumbles. “I also wasn’t always perfectly honest.”

“Yes, that’s one of my later points.” Dongju laughs a little, and Giwook can’t help but join him. “Let me continue. Because secondly, I know it’s also my fault that things went to shit so much because I made you lie to Dongmyeong.”

Giwook opens his mouth to protest — Dongju didn’t _make_ him do anything, and none of this was ever discussed — but Dongju cuts him off before he can even start. “I know what you’re going to say because I know it doesn’t seem that way, and I never explicitly told you to lie to him for me, but it was implied. You never would’ve lied to him about anyone else, it was just implied that you would because it was me and I didn’t tell him, either.”

And that, Giwook can’t dispute. It’s true, of course he never would have lied to Dongmyeong about seeing anyone else, he just did because Dongju, the one person in the world who might arguably be closer to Dongmyeong than he is himself, did it too. And he didn’t want to betray him like that, ratting both of them out.

“So I want to apologize for that,” Dongju continues after giving Giwook a minute to stomach that. “I know it caused some rupture between you two even before he found out what really happened, and I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Giwook says again, but this time Dongju shakes his head.

“It’s really not, and you don’t have to pretend that it is.” His eyes crinkle in a smile. “I appreciate the forgiveness, but I also have to accept the fact that I messed up, and that my actions affect others in more ways than directly.”

Giwook nods. “Okay, you’re right, sorry. Carry on?”

Dongju laughs, and while it doesn’t sound happy, it still looks real in his eyes. “Right, yes. Okay, thirdly … especially recently I’ve done a lot of things that I didn’t want to do to prove something to myself. Or to you. Or the people around me. Whoever was around the most. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t too attached to you to leave.”

The words strike right where it hurts, and the pictures come back to him. Halloween, Dongju wound around the neck of another man — Yeonjun, the cool producing student from his studio — and with his neck bitten red. Covered up the next day. How many more times must something like that have happened for Dongju to say _a lot of things_ and for him to name so many different targets of his strategy? How many people has he been with since?

Giwook feels sick to his stomach thinking about it, but he keeps his face neutral. It’s none of his business who Dongju gets with, how many different people, not actually — if the jealousy didn’t make him so damn sick.

Dongju presses his lips into a tight line and nods. “I’m not proud of it, let me just say that. Not that there’s anything wrong with sleeping around for the fun of it, lord knows I’ve never shamed Dongmyeong for it, but I didn’t do it because I had so much fun with it. I did it because I was sad and then when I told Keonhee about what happened he told me that he thinks I’m too attached to ever let you go out with someone else, let alone go out with someone else myself. And I just — I needed to prove him wrong. For myself, too. So I tried. And I hated every second of it.”

And out of the pain in the center of Giwook’s chest blooms the flower of hope. That Dongju did get with Yeonjun with Giwook on his mind, perhaps, and that he didn’t enjoy himself. That he doesn’t prefer people like Choi Yeonjun.

People who are tall and cool and smile at everyone. The opposite of Giwook.

“Because I’m afraid that I am attached to you, Giwook,” Dongju continues, and his voice almost swims. Giwook wants to reach out for him, pull him closer, but he doesn’t dare. “A lot more than I’d like.”

The silence that falls between them is deafening even to Giwook’s scrambles for words — what is he to say to that? What does that even mean? Does Dongju like him and is scared of it? Or does he like him and hates that he does? Or does he not like him, but is still not willing to let him go because he’s selfish? Or —?

Dongju visibly swallows again, and Giwook still hasn’t said anything. “It’s okay,” Dongju says way too hurriedly. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know because it’s important for my next point, because, uh —”

He stumbles over his own words, and Giwook has to cut him off before he gets even more into his head.

“Dongju,” he tries for calm. Gets Dongju’s flickering eyes to focus on his face, leans forward even if it does nothing to bridge the two meters between them. “If you tell me exactly what you mean, I will tell you what I think.”

“What do you mean?” His voice grows so quiet, a frown bending his brows.

“Well, what do you mean by you’re more attached to me that you’d like? Because if it means what I think it does, then you don’t need to be so anxious about it, I promise you.” Giwook tries to smile at him, but his own nerves are on fire under his skin, and he has a hard time keeping his eyes focussed on Dongju’s face.

Dongju stares at him, eyes wide open. Like they always are. He swallows again, and slowly, he opens his lips. Soft like petals, despite the cracks in them, Giwook knows all too well. “It means that I like you. A lot. And I never thought I would, and I hate myself for it because I promised myself that it would only be an in between thing until I get to university. And then you followed me here, and I couldn’t stop. But I also can’t change it.”

The flower of hope digs its roots deep into Giwook’s heart, and he has to smile. “Thank you,” he says.

“Thank me?” Dongju blinks at him, surprised. “What are you thanking me for?”

“For being honest.” Giwook shrugs. “And for liking me, I guess. Because I like you, too. A lot. And I think we both should’ve been a lot more honest. Because I’m attached to you, too, and I hated seeing you with other people.”

Something blooms on Dongju’s face, too, and Giwook wants to call it hope.

“We definitely should have been more honest,” he says, and he finally moves away from the door. Crosses the distance between them with careful steps, sits down on the edge of the bed. “Things would’ve been a lot easier.”

Giwook laughs, it just squeezes out of his throat with such force it nearly brings tears to his eyes. “Definitely.” And he reaches out for Dongju, finally. A hand meets his own halfway, fingers twisting together like they did last night. “And I have a lot to apologize for, too. I lied to you and did some things I didn’t want to do.”

Dongju nods and lowers his head, pressing his lips together again. But he doesn’t let go of Giwook’s hand.

“I’ve been realizing a lot of things recently, even if I think I’ve known that I like you a little more than I planned to for quite a while. Like how I went out with Jisung only because he reminded me of you a little bit. And because I thought I couldn’t have you, I was trying to find you in other people, and it didn’t work.”

Dongju’s hand in his own twitches, tightens around his palm. Clinging onto him. He isn’t looking at Giwook, but that’s okay. At least he’s here now, and he doesn’t seem to want to leave again.

“It seems we are both very stupid, and only made things stupidly complicated by keeping it all a secret and thereby creating a reality in which we both couldn’t be honest about our feelings in fear of either the other leaving or the secrets being revealed to the general public,” Dongju summarizes for them. He’s playing with Giwook’s hand.

“Yes, I think that’s basically the point.” Giwook smiles when Dongju finally looks up at him. “So now that it’s all out in the open and we know how we feel — what do we do now? Kiss?”

Dongju laughs, but he lets go of Giwook’s hand in favor of wrapping both of his hands around Giwook’s face and pulling him forward by it, meeting him halfway and crashing their lips together in a bruising kiss. He still smells like home, still tastes the exact same as Giwook remembers. A hint of toothpaste behind his teeth.

And he’s here, warm and real, soft and almost giving under his hands. Almost — he holds his ground just enough for them to stay sitting up, his fingers digging hard into Giwook’s cheeks, and he squeezes them together.

This is his kiss, and he’s not going to let Giwook take it from him. And Giwook will let him do anything. Even push him down until Dongju is offering above him, legs spanning Giwook’s hips, and kissing him even deeper in this angle.

Giwook has no actual idea of how they ended up like this, licking into each other's mouths like it’s the only thing they know how to do after they just poured their hearts out to each other, close to tears. Now Dongju is near crushing his skull between his hands with the intensity of their kiss, holding him in place so he can do what he wants.

Which manifests in him biting down on Giwook’s lower lip nearly hard enough to draw blood and sucking his tongue into his mouth. Giwook lets him, lets his body go pliant for Dongju to drag him around how he likes.

They’ve been playing cat and mouse for way too long — it’s time to make things easy for once.

And Dongju seems to appreciate it. He pulls away after a few minutes, breathless and lips bright red and slick with spit, and he looks like a vision. Giwook smiles up at him, and Dongju smiles back. Pecks him again.

“Maybe we should give the audience something to actually cheer for,” he says, and Giwook frowns.

 _What audience?_ Giwook only has a moment to wonder what he’s even talking about before Dongju lunges halfway across him to grab something off the nightstand and hurl it back towards the door. What turns out to be a charging plug slaps against the wood with a sharp bang, and someone scrambles on the other side.

“Stop being a fucking pervert, Myeong,” Dongju calls out.

“Oh my god, were you going to —” Dongmyeong shrieks, voice gradually getting quieter as he seems to back away from the door. “I was just trying to make sure you two are all right. Warn a guy next time!”

A door slams shut down the hall, and Dongju turns back to him, rolling his eyes. “He’s so dumb.”

And he lets himself drop back to press another kiss to Giwook’s lips, but there’s no more heat behind it now. It’s gentle, and Giwook follows him easily, without thinking about it. Dongju slips off his lap to lie down next to him, and their lips only barely detach. Keep gently pressing in, capturing the warmth there.

“I missed you,” Giwook whispers into the silence when they do finally part.

Dongju smiles at him and rakes a hand through his hair. His eyes are so gentle like this, crinkling at the edges and full of an unnamed emotion, full of warmth. “I missed you, too,” he says, and it’s okay.

They will be okay, Giwook allows himself to believe.

Maybe, though, they were foolish to believe that Dongmyeong would be done with them.

They emerge from Giwook’s bedroom sometime in the afternoon, after getting a few more hours of sleep to soothe headaches pounding in both of their heads and just to sleep tucked into each other for the first time in a while.

Dongmyeong is waiting for them out in the living room when Giwook opens the door and lets Dongju leave first.

“I’m starving,” is the first thing Dongju says. He looks a bit of a mess, hair standing up at the side of his head that was pressed against the pillow, face glowing red from the warmth of the bed, and his words make Dongmyeong look up from his phone and raise his eyebrows at the sight of them. “Is there any of the breakfast left?”

“No, I ate the rest for lunch earlier,” Dongmyeong says, crossing his arms over his chest as he gazes at them intently, like he’s looking for something. “You two had fun?”

Giwook snorts. “I think you’d know if we’d done anything in there.”

“No, I’ve never had my headphones pressed in this hard and my music turned up this loud. I did not want to hear anything that might have been going on.” Dongmyeong shrugs. “God knows how nasty you two are.”

Dongju rolls his eyes and makes his way over to the kitchen. “We wouldn’t fuck if we know you’re in the apartment. That’s disgusting, actually.” He shakes his head and Giwook watches as he opens the fridge.

It makes him feel just a little bit odd, how naturally Dongju wanders around their apartment. Of course, he’s been here countless of times before, almost every week, probably multiple times. And he and Dongmyeong have always shared everything without so much as thinking about it, but it still seems a little odd.

But maybe that’s just Giwook, and the fact that he finds everything about Dongju a little odd.

They eat — Dongju procures two packs of ramen out of a cabinet after he gives up on finding something healthier to make in the fridge, and they sit too close together at the kitchen table while they eat. Dongju tucks his leg behind Giwook’s calf while he doesn’t pay him any attention otherwise, and Giwook never thought that he would ever be this crazed about such simple affections from someone, but here he is. Near vibrating in his seat.

And when they’re done eating and they’ve cleaned up after themselves, Dongju yawns and leans in to give Giwook what would undoubtedly be a sleepy kiss — but they are immediately ripped apart.

Dongmyeong is holding them both by their collars, giving especially Giwook a stern look. “Before you two succumb to sucking each other's faces off again, I think we all have some talking to do.” And he pulls them back into the living room, makes them sit down on the couch they just woke up on earlier, a good foot apart.

“What do you want us to say?” Dongju asks, folding his leg under himself. Of course, Dongmyeong is not the least bit intimidating even when he puts on his bad cop face, but Giwook could still be careful.

If only because he only just restored the peace between Dongmyeong and himself, and doesn’t want to ruin it.

Hurt, Dongmyeong puts a hand over his heart and sniffles a little. “Don’t talk to me like I’m the one doing something wrong, Ju, I’m wounded,” he whines. So much for the bad cop face. “All I want is to establish some common ground here, because I do still have to cope with the fact that you two are … a thing now.”

From the corner of his eye, Giwook sees Dongju roll his eyes again, and he wants to reach out and pinch him. _Try not to make him even more upset._ But he decides against it, seeing as Dongju is kind of right.

Dongmyeong can absolutely be kind of stupid.

“First of all,” Dongmyeong starts, spreading his arms dramatically. “I want to apologize for the way I reacted when I found out about this, I was being a little overdramatic and I know it must have stoked some of the fires between you two because the reason you kept it all a secret was because you _knew_ I wouldn’t take it well.”

He pauses here to give Giwook and Dongju a moment to look at each other and consider the truth of his words. They are true, and Giwook doesn’t know exactly what Dongmyeong wants them to say to that.

“So I’m sorry for that,” Dongmyeong continues, a little less ceremoniously. “For making things harder for you both. Though I’m still kind of mad that you lied to me for a year, I understand why you did, especially because I know Dongju’s reasons and I’m sure Giwook only followed. And even though I am still kind of mad, I also want you to know that I’m not opposed to you being a thing and I’m not trying to stand in your way. Just —”

And here it comes. Giwook closes his eyes to brace for the imminent embarrassment.

“If you could both be a little careful to not … do anything spicy in my presence, that would be great. It’s got nothing to do with whether I approve of your relationship or anything, I just don’t exactly wanna be present while my own brother gets fucked. Or fucks. Whatever. You know what I mean. No matter who it is with.”

The closing his eyes hadn’t sufficed, Giwook finds as he buries his face in his hands.

He wants to look up and see if Dongju is equally embarrassed, but his question is answered when the couch moves next to him and he hears Dongju, voice neutral, say, “I just told you I would never if I knew you were around.”

“Look, I’m just trying to make sure that we all understand —”

“We do understand, Myeong,” Giwook gets himself to say, raising his head. Freeing his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he makes himself continue, “I don’t think I would even be able to get it up if I knew you would hear us.”

At that, Dongmyeong slaps a hand over his heart again, and lets his jaw drop open in protest. “Well, excuse you. I think I’m very well one of the sexiest things that’s ever happened to you, watch your fucking tone.”

Giwook snorts. “I beg to disagree. I fear you might have been outdone by your own brother.”

“Both of you better shut the fuck up before I bite someone,” Dongju cuts Dongmyeong off just as he opens his mouth to retort. “You are both gross and I will cry if I hear another word from either of you. I also have to go home, they will send out a team to look for me if I don’t soon, so hurry up, Myeong.”

“Right.” Dongmyeong clears his throat, sending Giwook one last scathing look with no actual heat behind it. “All I’ve got left to say is that while I would appreciate it if you kept your business out of my general vicinity,” — “ _Dongmyeong,_ ” — “Right. I’m still happy for you guys. I never thought or even in any way imagined that this could happen, but I can’t say that I can’t see it and that I’m not happy you two finally get along. More than that, I guess, but in any way. I’m happy. You’re both my best friends and I’m sure you will be good to each other. And if not, well …”

Dongju has gone kind of soft next to him, even if he would never admit that he has, but it’s Giwook who rolls his eyes at the way Dongmyeong flexes his fingers now, as if gearing up for a punch.

Dongju leans over to pull Dongmyeong into a hug against his chest, an unusual display of affection that Giwook did not expect, and Dongmyeong, too, kind of squeaks against him. Dongju holds him there, though, pressing his head against his chest like he wants to crush him, for a moment before he lets go at once and sits back down.

It seems to take Dongmyeong a moment to gather his bearings again, shaking his head, but he sits down, too.

“All right,” he says as if nothing happened, clapping his hands and smiling. “I’m done. You can leave now, Ju.”

“Wow, how very kind of you,” Dongju gives back, but he does get up. Gets his shoes by the door and only turns around again to jump back over the couch, bend down and press a kiss to Giwook’s lips, much to Dongmyeong’s dismay and protest. “I’ll see you two,” and with a pat to Giwook’s shoulder, he adds, “Call me.”

Giwook stays frozen in place for a moment, until the door falls shut behind Dongju, and he turns around.

Dongmyeong raises an eyebrow at him, clearly judgmental in the way he’s still spread out on the couch, and Giwook can only shake his head. He doesn’t know what that was, either.

They have yet to talk about where all of this leaves them, what it means for them. Is Dongju his boyfriend now? Are they going to continue doing things the way they used to, just with Dongmyeong knowing about it now? Because with all of the kissing and the random touches and the sleeping curled around each other, it does seem like Dongju may be after something more. That he already assumes that there is something more between them.

And not that Giwook would be opposed to that, he’d just like some clarity first.

So he sits down on his bed after he takes a well needed shower and cleans up the living room as per Dongmyeong’s request (order), and he pulls out his phone and types in the name of a contact.

He calls, because he can, now, and Dongju has a smile in his voice when he picks up.

“You look tired,” Youngjo comments when Giwook flops down on the chair next to him. “Not off to a good start?”

“Actually, it’s all going well,” Giwook says, slapping his notebook on the table. Full of notes he’s been taking about lyrics and composition for his new project, here for Youngjo to review. “I was just kept up by something all night.”

Youngjo raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t ask, which Giwook is thankful for. Nothing like explaining to your mentor type person that the reason you’re too tired to work in the morning is because you stayed up all night sucking dick on a shitty bathroom floor. Giwook feels his face grow red at the pure thought.

His phone is filled with more texts than it’s ever been before, asking for him to come over because all of the roommates are out, or asking to get coffee after class. Asking for a cuddle session late at night, both tired.

He called Dongju after he left that day, and they talked it out on the phone. All the things they didn’t say while they were overcome with strange emotions in Giwook’s bedroom, hangovers banging on the insides of their heads, and hands tied behind their backs by all of the awkwardness they’d had to endure before.

They were careful not to fuck up when they talked for the first time in weeks, watching every word, scared to drive each other away again. But when Dongju picked up the phone that night, there were no such qualms.

Only honest words filling the line connecting them, Dongju’s voice soft and deep on the other end, rough from talking too much all day and the alcohol still layering over his throat. It made Giwook smile as he listened to him turn on the tab while they talked about what they really want. And they want everything — holding hands in the quiet of the night in Giwook’s apartment and kissing in front of everyone and all of the sex they’ve been having before.

These are things Giwook feels himself crave whenever he looks at Dongju. Run his hands through his hair and feel Dongju do the same, lying in the deep dark of his room at night and talking to him like they never stopped.

Dongju has so many things to say, so many thoughts on his mind, and Giwook wants to hear every single one.

But Youngjo doesn’t need to know these kinds of things about him, and especially not the reason he was up all night, so Giwook keeps his mouth shut and Youngjo doesn’t ask him anything that’s not to do with the notes he took.

They work in near tranquility — Youngjo takes notes for his own projects, tells Giwook about a song he has to compose for one of his senior classes, maybe as a warning to him, while Giwook works on the audio strings — and while he searches his private laptop for a sample he downloaded, he stumbles over the song he wrote a while ago.

Buried beneath folders upon folders, because he wanted to hide it from himself, too, and probably way too far down for the sample to be, but Giwook waits until Youngjo leaves for his bathroom break to open the file.

He had no plans of ever showing this to anyone except for himself and Youngjo, who is uninvolved in his life enough to not run the risk of ever telling on him for this song, when he first made this. But now he rests his head on the small space left on his desk and lets it play into his ears. The soft chords, the vocals sometimes crooked.

It’s not even an awful song, and he thinks he remembers Youngjo saying that, too. Just a bit sad.

Because he was sad, at the moment that he made this. Not as sad as he would be in the weeks that followed the making of this song, but it was the start. His fingers drum along to the beat, now, and a smile blooms on his face.

His self of the past sings crookedly about tentative loves and too many lies told, and he closes his eyes.

Just before Youngjo returns from the bathroom, he sends the song over to his phone and saves it, closes the file on the laptop and goes back to work. He could think about what to do with it later, even if he kind of already knows.

There is a picture of Giwook and Dongju on the wall of the living room next to all the other pictures, now.

Dongmyeong kind of pulled a face when Giwook approached him with the print, maybe mostly because it was a cheesy selfie taken in bed — with all clothes where they should be — but he was still the one to put it up himself.

There is another one in Giwook’s room, a little less appropriate but just as cute, pinned in the corner of the mirror at the back of the door. Dongju’s cheek half buried in his hair and the camera nearly capturing the exact way his eyes sparkle, bare neck and bare collar bones littered with red marks. Dongmyeong fortunately hasn’t seen this one yet.

And there are more saved on Giwook’s phone, selfies taken at parks or on the couch. Pictures of Dongju holding a stupidly large cup of coffee at the coffee shop down the street or a laden tray at the cafeteria, of Dongju half asleep on the kitchen counter, smiling at the hand Giwook rakes through his hair. Of their hands clasped together in Dongju’s lap, like a cheesy photograph on a photo app. Inappropriate pictures of hickeys littered everywhere.

Love bites, Giwook would go as far as calling them, because the word is so much more intimate, so much more meaningful than a stupid hickey anyone could get from anyone at a party. Like Dongju has. These are different.

It’s been a few months since they made things official, and these are marks of what Giwook would call love.

Giwook makes sure to crop any identifying marks out of those pictures, just in case.

And Dongju keeps pictures of them, too. One is struck up right on his nightstand, even if it makes Giwook’s face burn red every time he stays over. His face is red in the picture, too, and Dongju is kissing his red cheek, eyes open and trying to catch a glimpse of Giwook’s pout, two fingers digging into the very visible bruise on his neck.

Dongju lives with three roommates that Giwook has gotten acquainted with all too well in the meantime, and he doesn’t feel it’s very appropriate for Dongju to have such a picture out in the open, for everyone who walks in to see.

But Dongju does what he wants, Giwook had to learn that fast and hard, and he doesn’t take it down.

He doesn’t seem to particularly care about shame or modesty when it comes to his roommates in general. He explicitly sexiles them, doesn’t even try to come up with a more innocent sounding excuse, and it makes Giwook burn hot with shame the one time he’s around for Dongju telling Keonhee to stay out for the rest of the night.

Keonhee seems little bothered, and he throws Giwook a wink on his way out. Dongju explains how many times Keonhee has sexiled them to meet with a certain senior from his department, and Giwook thinks he understands.

He and Dongmyeong have always been comfortable around each other, maybe Dongmyeong a little overly so with how many too intimate tales he’s told Giwook over the years, but he guesses there’s an entirely new level to Dongju and his roommates. At least he and Dongmyeong actually wait for the other to leave to engage in what they do, while Dongju and the other inhabitants of this apartment apparently just explicitly tell each other to leave.

“I have nothing to be ashamed of with them,” Dongju says while he shrugs off his sweater jacket. “If there was any shame in these halls once upon a time, it died long before I arrived. Woongie had sex while all of us were here once.”

Giwook crinkles his nose, but he doesn’t complain when Dongju takes off his shirt, too, and dives down to push him back on the bed, until he’s flat on his back and Dongju’s face is only an inch from his. They both smile at the same time, and somewhere in the middle, their lips meet in a kiss too gentle to match the mood.

Everything has gotten a lot gentler with Dongju ever since they confirmed this, and Giwook loves it.

There is still a hand in his hair, tugging at his locks to pull his head back and give Dongju more space to place kisses against his lips and lick into his mouth, tongue running along his teeth. But Giwook loves that, too.

Loves the hands Dongju runs up his sides, digs into his clothes before they take them off and his fingers reach skin, dig into his skin instead. Hard enough to bruise, but also to make Giwook arch off the mattress. Loves the kisses he presses along this throat, a barely there scratch of teeth that has Giwook keening.

Dongju is back in all of the ways Giwook missed him, a kiss on his lips and a hand in his hair, but also a warmth against his side once they’re done, a gentle voice in the darkness, so smart.

He bends Giwook’s leg back by his knee, and he smiles when Giwook’s head falls back into the pillow.

They’re too loud, but they can be here. All of the roommates are gone and they don’t run the risk of Dongmyeong walking in — and even if he did, it would only be awkward and gross, but not a world shattering experience. They don’t have to hide anymore, not even from each other. Giwook can breathe his name when Dongju sinks into him.

They can move in sync and kiss every time Dongju bottoms out, and there will be no shame in it. There will be nothing wrong with it, no fear settling deep in Giwook’s bones when Dongju leaves too fast afterwards.

They can lie side by side and he can twist his fingers into Dongju’s hair and pull him up into a kiss by it and he won’t have to be embarrassed, or spend hours thinking about if Dongju would think about it. If he would draw the wrong conclusions and figure out what Giwook really feels. Now he’s allowed to know. He already knows.

Dongju fucks him like he means it because he does. Giwook can let himself sink back into the affection pouring over his head because he knows it’s real, and Dongju confirms it to be with every kiss pressed to the top of his head.

And they both finish at nearly the same time, with Dongju’s hand in his hair and his lips pressed to Giwook’s, moaning his name into his mouth while he presses his hips up against him, they do so moving in sync. Giwook wraps both of his arms around Dongju’s narrow middle and pulls to have him closer, deeper inside but also close enough to kiss every inch of his face until he breaks out into a fit of giggles. To run a hand through his sweaty hair.

Dongju is beautiful like this. He’s beautiful in every way, no matter if he’s panting Giwook’s name between the sheets or making fun of him under the sunlight, but he’s especially beautiful like this.

Sweaty and gross and his face a little red around the edges, eyes blown wide and so, so open. Like there is nothing else about him Giwook has left to find out, like it’s all there, just within arm’s reach. He glows in every way possible while he’s above Giwook, his skin radiates warmth and his eyes twinkle in satisfaction that goes beyond sex.

He deserves every ounce of affection Giwook pours over him, every kiss pressed to his face, every small giggle Giwook can draw out of him feels like a gate to heaven. Like he’s pleasing the angels.

Specifically, the angel sitting up in his lap right now, stretching his arms over his beautiful head.

“I love you,” Giwook says for the first time right in that moment, with Dongju’s love warmed skin under the palm of his hand, because it feels right. There’s no shame in saying it. Not with Dongju right above him, warm from their love and glowing with all that it gives him, and he’s so sure of what he wants. What he already has.

And Dongju smiles, dives down to kiss him again. His lips are soft and warm, move gently across his face when they leave his lips, reach every inch of it like Giwook did with him moments before.

“I wouldn’t,” Dongju tells him, but there’s a smile in his voice. “I gotta say, you have terrible taste.”

“I beg to disagree,” Giwook mumbles back right as Dongju’s lips find his again, tilting his head back to kiss him properly. He raises his own hand to put it against Dongju’s cheek, angling his head away to look at him. The rosy tint to the tops of his cheeks, the slope of his nose and the plushness of his lips. The twinkle in his eyes when they meet Giwook, like a challenge but also too honest. Too real. “I think my taste is just right.”

Dongju’s face only grows warmer under his palm, and he tries to slap Giwook’s chest. Giwook catches his hand halfway and threads their fingers together, smiles up at him only to watch him grow rosier.

“You are an awful sap,” Dongju lets him know, but he sinks back down once more to press a kiss to his lips.

“Only for you.” Giwook winks at him, which earns him a gentle pinch on the shoulder, and Dongju’s forehead sinking against his. “It’s because I really do love you so much,” he repeats, because he’s not ashamed of it.

Not anymore.

And in the quiet of the apartment, loud enough for anyone who could have been around to hear, Dongju say it back. “I love you, too.”

And it’s okay.

**Author's Note:**

> aaaand I hope you enjoyed! She is a bit of a monster with a lot of emotional turmoil, I'm aware, but I hope you liked it nonetheless :)
> 
> Let me know your thoughts in the comments, they'd make me so happy! ♥ Or come talk to me on Twitter, @kitthae


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